


Choices

by swimmingfox



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-07-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 08:52:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 42
Words: 79,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimmingfox/pseuds/swimmingfox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kings Landing AU. When Sansa is told by Joffrey that she has to marry Tyrion, she can think of only one person to help her. A journey that takes in imprisonment, ships and storms and a Free City...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all, I'm continuing with the same San/San mixed-POV format of my previous two stories, but combined into one! Gonna try and go somewhere different this time... I’m going to age up Sansa to a healthy 17 in this one. It’s a mix of GoT and ASOIAF canon. All characters/settings are the property of GRRM.

Sansa was running. Her heart was a trapped feathered thing in her chest. She was streaking down a long corridor lit with caged candles, which threw shadow cats on to the walls. But there were real things to fear. Shouts were not far behind her, bouncing off the stone, mingled with feet and the scraping of swords. She found the door she’d been looking for, and shoved it open.

***

I’m on my bed, half-stricken with a blasted fever, looking at one of my damned boots. Heel’s come all adrift, from the scuffle in another slum riot. That’s all my fucking job is these days, keeping famine-crazed peasants from tearing up the boy. Maybe one of these days I should just let them have him, watch them rip him limb from limb, eat him all up. That – and keeping an eye on the bird of course. The reason I’m still here and not in some sun-blasted isle with the salt making my hair stiff. I couldn’t leave, and leave her here with him, not after the way he’s got. He’s got a taste for the darker things – as dark-twisted as my brother, maybe even moreso, and who’d have thought that were possible. But it’s getting harder to watch after her, there’s no doubt. Even though he’s got a new queen, he’s got her as his fucking plaything, a lazy cat toying with a mouse, just pawing at it enough so it can’t run off. It pains me, to watch her taking it, and part of me wishes she’d just scream and claw his eyes out, though I know that that would be the end of – 

The door slams open, and suddenly she’s there, eyes as wide as a Dornish sky, and she’s falling on it, her hands behind her, staring at me, her chest heaving. I say _what the hells are you doing bird_? and she says _hiding_ and just stands there, looking at me, as wired as anything. _Please_ she says and her voice is like a damned little pain in my gut and I say _get under here then, quick girl_. And she moves, fast as a spider, and scuttles under the bed, covers long enough to conceal her, just as I hear the clump of boots coming down the corridor. 

A thundering at the door. _What_? I say, still on the bed, and it flings open, and Ser Boros is there, his fat bullface steaming. _Have you seen her_? he says and I say _who_ and he says _the Stark cunt who do you fucking think_ and I say _not since the midday feast I haven’t_ and I say _where’s she gone_? He screws his eyes at me as if I’m an idiot and says _if I knew I wouldn’t be here would I_ and he says _she’s gone running from the king, fat lot of good that’ll do her, silly bitch_. _Ay, that she is_ I say, not moving. Goldcloaks fly past behind him and he looks round at them and back at me and says _aren’t you coming then_? and I say _ay alright Boros, keep your fucking scalp on, I’ll be along once I find a new boot I can stand up in_ and I hold it up at him. He scowls at me and is off.

I get up and shut the door. It’s dead quiet. She can’t be moving a muscle. Maybe I dreamt it and I’ll look under there and there’ll be nothing but a heap of dust. I‘ve dreamt of it enough times, though she doesn’t normally end up under my bed, ha.

 _There’s a dead mouse under here_ says a small voice that’s as small as a rodent itself, and I can’t help a grin. _Better a dead mouse than a dead Stark I s’pose_ I say, and I hear her wriggle a bit and I say _hold off bird, just give it a moment_ and she stops. Partly I’m just enjoying the picture of her curled up under my bed and my mind’s half-drifting off to being tucked up there with her and then I say, _alright, out you come_. And she slides out, as graceful as if she’s just slid across a ballroom floor, and stands there, her hands folded in front of her. Her face is red and there’s a tear streaked on her cheek, a little glitter. 

She starts to turn around slightly to look around the room and I can’t help laughing. Her back half – her hair, shoulders, the back of her skirts, is caked in dust. _What?_ she says, her voice tight, her eyes fidgeting. _You look like you’ve been sleeping in spiderwebs_ I say. She brings a hand up to the back of her head and looks at her palm. _It’s not my fault you don’t clean under your bed_ , she says, with cheeks looking like they’ve been slapped. I laugh again and she starts to pat at her skirts. _You shouldn’t be here_ , I say, more serious, and she says quietly _I know, but_ – and then I hear a voice outside. That gilded, chopped sound that is only one person, and I move quick, push her by the stomach to the wall behind the door and say, dead quiet, _stay there girl_.


	2. Chapter 2

Sansa had lain with the stone pressing coldly into her shoulder blades, the base of her back, the back of her skull. The dust was a finger-width thick. She’d turned her head upwards and to the side just a little to find the petrified little corpse of a mouse, tiny mouth open and arms prone, as if clutching a silk drape. She had bitten her bottom lip hard to stop from shrieking. 

After Joffrey had summoned her to court, and as he so often did made her stand there in front of the whole court and recite her crimes, describe her pleasure at seeing her father’s head severed from his body, he had held his hand up to stop her. He addressed her as if he were her septon and she a five-year old child who had stolen a cake from the pantry.

‘You, my lady, we all know, are the daughter of a traitor. That makes you little better than a whore to me. And now that I have a new queen – ‘ and he reached out and put his hand on Margaery’s knee, and she smiled at him, a smile that didn’t quite reach the eyes - ‘I cannot see you lurking around my castle with your whore’s face, reminding me of your father’s treachery. I need to make use of you, and now is the time. The only way you can redeem yourself is to ally what’s left of your house with mine. You are to be married to my uncle.’

‘But your Grace, Ser Jaime is still a prisoner,’ Sansa had begun, before her voice faltered, seeing Joffrey’s golden-gleaming features twist into a cruel grin. 

‘And I pray every day for his safe return,’ he had said, raising his voice to ensure that those at the back of the room could hear. ‘You are to marry Lord Tyrion, a match you should be on your knees thanking me for.’

He had spoken with such maddeningly feigned insouciance that for a moment Sansa hadn’t taken in what he was saying. A murmur had rippled like a low tide around the room, and smirks mixed in with the hands over mouths, and it felt like the sea had risen in her throat. Margaery had put a hand on Joffrey’s shoulder and leant over to whisper in his ear, a look of concern on her face. 

‘And what if – I don’t want to?’ Her voice had trailed away.

‘What, pray, my lady?’ Joffrey had made a play of cocking his head to the side to better hear what he had heard perfectly well. ‘Well, go on.’ He had gestured with his hand. ‘Speak up.’

Sansa had already said too much, she knew it. But something in her had broken, a tiny, filigree thread that had been holding her together for so long snapping in two. She raised her head, ignoring the flash of warning in Margaery’s eyes.

‘What if I don’t want to, your Grace?’ she said, the last words shot through with the faintest trace of sarcasm.

He looked at her, hardly believing she’d dared. Then his face became as smooth as a glazed pot, and he appeared almost bored. ‘If you don’t, I’ll have your head, and I’ll send it to your mother on a serving plate.’

Sansa had blinked away a tear, turned heel, and run.

She had only realised as she had turned towards the White Tower where her instincts were leading her. To the only place she dared go within the castle walls: the Hound’s chamber. He hadn’t been in court, apparently laid low with an ague, and she had prayed and prayed that he would be in there.

He was the only one she trusted, apart from Shae. Margery seemed concerned for her, and would tuck her arm in her elbow and stroll among the gardens with her, but she didn’t feel that anyone who could bring herself to marry Joffrey, for whatever political or personal gain, could be fully trusted. 

The Hound was hardly a pillar of comfort. He was still never openly kind, but she knew he looked out for her when he could, and had somehow managed to persuade Joffrey that she hadn’t needed to be publically struck on a regular basis. And that night, during the battle, with the green fire of the seven hells coming in from the sea, he’d come, and said he’d take her away with him, and she’d said no. 

She’d said no, because she felt sure that Stannis would win and protect her, and because the Hound was drunk, slaked in blood and terrifying the wits out of her. She’d made him furious at that, but then he’d looked at her queerly, said he’d never hurt her, and lurched away. And then – he hadn’t left. She’d almost gasped when she’d seen him two days later, his face a mess of new scars, and he’d avoided her gaze for a week. She turned it over in her mind, wondered again and again if he’d not left because of her, or whether the notion of abandoning his king and being labelled a turncoat and a traitor had seemed less attractive once he’d sobered up.

She realised, lying under his bed, that it was the first time she’d seen him without his armour. He’d been sitting there holding one of his boots, in his mailshirt and breeches, and looked completely startled to see her fly into his room. But he’d regained his composure, and as she listened to him speaking offhandedly to Ser Boros, unruffled as anything, she knew she’d done the right thing.

She’d come out and he’d laughed at her covered in dust, and she’d beaten at her skirts, embarrassed and not a little furious, and suddenly his hand was on her stomach, pushing her backwards with some force until she all but slammed into the wall. She was about to protest when she heard what he had heard. A voice, in the corridor. Joffrey.

***

I make sure I look as groggy as I can as the boy comes banging on the door, shouting _dog! Dog!_ I open it and peer down at him. _Your Grace_? I say, hoping I look like I’ve just woken up. His eyes are two picks of ice, and he shoves them about the room. _Sansa’s run away, that little bitch_ , he says. _Ay, well, she can’t run far_ , I say, putting a hand in my hair. _No, she won’t_ , he says, glaring at me. I’m standing there, nodding solemnly, when he says, _well, what are you waiting for dog, go and find her_! I frown a bit. _Of course, your Grace, I say, I’ve just a broken boot to take care – I don’t care if you have to go with your fucking toes on display, just find her_ , he says, brittle as a bit of snapsugar, and I think one day I’m going to wring your fucking neck so tight it’ll be nothing but a washrag but I say _ay your Grace_ , and he stands there waiting, so I grab my sword and shrug my armour on whilst he’s tapping his fingers, and leave with him, shutting the door, Sansa still behind it. And I lock it, and pocket the key.

***

Sansa heard the key jolt in the lock, and footsteps fading. He had locked her in. Imprisoned her. It might have been for her own safety, but she was still angry. He’d left her no choice but to stay there, indebted to his action. She let her breathing slow, and looked about her. It was already growing dark, but she could see how bare the room was. There were no books, or flowers in a vase, or anything that would give the room character. There was a small table with a bowl on it, a long oaken box on the floor – she peeked in and found piles of clothes and underthings and quickly shut it again – and two swords in a wooden stand by the wall.

Sansa sat down heavily on his bed, as the implications of Joffrey’s words began to seep back in. Tyrion. She couldn’t. Couldn’t ever marry him. He was perhaps the kindest of the household, and she knew he’d played a big hand in the success of Blackwater Bay, no matter what others said about Twyin and the Tyrells saving the day, but – he was dishonest, a schemer, an _imp_. And a Lannister. She would be trapped forever. She would never go back to Winterfell. Sansa fell back on the bed, and wept.

***

I managed to shake the boy after a bit and made a decent enough show of looking for the bird, joining Merys and some of the other guards in sweeping the Keep, the sept, the woods. Tried to shut my ears to the vile shit they were spouting about her, what they’d do to her if they found her nesting up a tree or somesuch. Not fucking likely, I thought, ‘cause you’d be wearing your spleens as fucking blindfolds before I let you get near her. Gods, there I go. I can’t help it. It’s like she’s pulled a fine thread off me, keeps giving it a little tug, yanking my thoughts back to protecting her. I think I’m only one – save her maid, and the Imp maybe, who sees that she’s doing her damndest to just keep her head out of the water. I try the hells not to, she drives me crazy with her bloody airs and graces, but I can’t stop bloody wanting to shield her.

The hunt goes further afield, into Fleabottom and over to the other gates, and I slope back to my chamber. My chest hurts from the ague, head too. I put my ear to the door. Nothing. I come in, and there’s no candle and I can’t see her. In a whisper I say _Sansa_ and there’s no answer and for a moment I think what, she’s a sorceress, she’s bled herself through the wall and escaped? And then a sigh, light as a damned snowflake. Coming from the bed.


	3. Chapter 3

‘Sansa.’

Sansa’s eyes fluttered open. The shape of the Hound blotted out what little moonlight there must have been. Her throat was dry. 

‘Sorry.’ She didn’t sit up.

He hovered above her, and spoke in a low, quiet voice. ‘What are you doing in the dark?’

‘You locked me in,’ she said in a near-hiss. 

She heard him sniff. ‘I thought it best.’ 

He moved towards the window and then across the room again, opening the door. The torches in the corridor fed a dull, flickering glow into the room. He returned holding a lit candle, and placed it in a holder by the bed. His face looked waxen.

‘You’re unwell,’ she said, feeling hollow.

‘I’m alright. A bit peaky, nothing I can’t stomach.’ 

The bed squeaked as he sat down at its foot. Sansa knew she should sit up, get up, leave swiftly – she was in the Hound’s room, on his bed, but – she couldn’t. 

‘You can’t stay here,’ he said, quite slowly.

She didn’t say anything for a while. Her head felt hot and heavy. She was rigid, curled into a ball with her arms wrapped around her. She had no options. There was no way out. ‘Joffrey says – I’m to marry – Lord Tyrion.’

There was a long silence. She heard him swallow. ‘I’m sorry, little bird.’

Sansa watched the shadows make little feathering shapes on the wall. She rolled over onto her back, her knees bent. ‘Tell me what to do.’

‘I don’t have the answers.’ He swallowed again. ‘I’m just – ‘

‘Just what?’

He made a small noise in his throat. ‘I’ll just look out for you, no matter what happens.’

‘You’ll protect me from Tyrion too, you mean?’ Her voice was bitter.

There was a pause, and she felt a hand on her foot, as warm as a blanket. ‘Ay.’

The small comfort made her want to break down. He could protect her from real harm, probably, but what was the point in protection if she was trapped in a marriage, had to consummate it, and would never see her family again? She felt the tears come. ‘I won’t do it.’

‘Sansa.’ Tonight was the first time he’d ever used her name. ‘I don’t know what to tell you. I’ll – make sure you’re not harmed. But for now, I – have to get you back to your room.’

She felt the fear rise in her then. ‘He’ll probably kill me now anyway. I – answered back to him. In front of everyone.’

‘He won’t. Not if he’s wanting to you use you for an alliance. You’re too – important.’

‘He’ll just hurt me, then.’

‘I won’t let him. Listen’ – he squeezed her foot again, and she sat up and hugged her knees, looking at him. ‘Tell him you’re sorry, and that you will do as he asks. It’s your way to stay alive. If you’re lucky, your brother will get to you before there’s sign of any wedding.’

She felt a slow pain sink from her throat through her ribs. She knew he was right. He never lied to her. It was – her only choice. One tear rolled down her cheek, and she felt his eyes follow its fall to the side of her mouth. She raised her eyes to him and saw a look she’d never quite seen before, one caught between sadness and – something else.

He stood up suddenly, and held his hand out, almost gallantly.

‘Come on,’ he said.

***

Gods. The sight of the little bird on my bed is near too much for me. Curled up like a nestling, she makes me want to pick her up and dash off with her into the night. I test how close I can get by sitting near her feet, and she doesn’t move a damned jot. But then I find out why – she’s been told to marry the fucking Imp. Anger rises in my throat like bile at that, the thought of her wedded to that cross-eyed, slick-tongued bastard. The boy is so fucking low. But no doubt Tywin’s had a hand in it too, always smashing families together where they don’t mix. And my guts feel cross-stitched at the thought of her just getting more tangled up in this fucking mess, and trying to think how I can help her. And she’s asking me for bloody advice as if I’m going to solve it all, and I think, well gods, Sansa, I did offer you a fucking way out and you threw it back in my face. What more can I do? But I try my best to tell her I’ll look out for her, and somehow my hand’s on her damned foot – she’s taken her boots off - and my heart’s bolting like a damned spooked horse. I could just put my hand further up her leg under her skirts, or pull her ankle towards me, and – gods, stop it man. I remember my place, just about.

I’m walking her back to her chambers, and she’s a little in front of me, and I look at her neck, like snow on a hillslope, and think, the Imp wouldn’t be able to even see that, for gods’ sake. And we round the corner, and – fuck. The boy’s there. Unguarded, just leaning against the wall, arms crossed. He pushes himself off with a foot as he sees us. Sansa stops dead, but I push her, a little roughly, in the back, towards him. _I’ve found her_ , I say. _I see that_ , he says, his voice lazy. _Where was she_? _Down in River Row, would you believe_ I say. _Is that so_? he says, grabbing her by the chin to make her look at him, which she does, trembling. _I’m – I’m sorry your Grace_ , she stammers, _I – it was a shock, to – hear of your plans, but I realise now that – you are right, you do me a service and an honour by betrothing me to Lord Tyrion_. 

Gods, she has a spine made of steel, I swear it. She’s looking right at him, and she is terrified, but she knows how to play him too, just enough. He’s still got hold of her chin. _You belittled me in court_ , he says. _I’m truly sorry_ , she says again. He whips his hand away. _What say you, dog_? he says, narrowing his eyes up at me. _Do you think she’s sorry enough_? 

Hells. I know where this is going. _Ay, I reckon she sounds it, just about_ , I say, knowing that won’t cut it. _Please, your Grace, it was a mistake_ , she begins to say, but he leans in to her. _I’m not sure you are_ , he says, _but you know well enough I must never strike a woman, even one as traitorous as you, because you’re so damned useful_ – and he begins stroking her face and moving his hand down her neck, not giving a shit that I’m right there and I think fuck this and I say, _leave it with me your Grace, I’ll see she’s punished_ and I grab Sansa by the elbow and move to yank her into her room.

He pulls her other arm. _No_ , he says, _this I want to see_. Sansa takes a breath in. He’s looking at me like he knows something, but how can he? There’s nothing to know. I drop her elbow. He’s got me. _There’s no need, your Grace_ , I say, _I can see to it_. _No, dog_ , he says, _this is my sport. I’ve not seen you strike her before, you’ve always left it to Ser Meryn or Ser Boros, for whatever reason I’m not quite clear. So I’ll watch you do it now_. 

Sansa gives a small whimper. I swallow. I could strangle him right now. I could – _Your Grace_ , I say one more time, and he says, like a damned grass snake, _I might not be able to have her head, but I could have yours. Strike her_. And then she turns and looks at me. Her eyes, those wide, early twilight eyes peel me down to my soul just then. He says, once more, _you’ll strike her or Ser Illyn will be polishing his greatsword for you in the morning_. And I’m still looking at her and she gives me the tiniest nod of her head, I swear it. And, with an anger boiling in me that I’ve never felt before, I raise my hand and I hit her across the face and she falls to the ground, and at that moment her maid comes running round the corner and dashes to her, and the boy looks at me keenly, nods as if approving a wine, and turns heel, and I flee, the other way.

And I punch the wall in my chamber so hard, over and over, until my knuckles bleed, until the skin flays, until you can see bone.


	4. Chapter 4

Sansa woke to a lemon-coloured dawn. She turned her head over on the pillow to a throbbing pain at her temple, and remembered. Joffrey. And the Hound, striking her. She let herself fall in truth, hoping that if it looked hard enough Joffrey would have his fill for the night, and thank the gods it worked, otherwise she hadn’t known where it would lead. He was the last person that wanted to hit her – in fact, Joffrey usually demanded that she was struck when the Hound was elsewhere, as if knowing he wouldn’t approve. He’d done it just to spite him.

She sat up. Shae was sitting by the window, and glanced over. ‘My lady.’ She moved over, all light and grace, the sunlight shining through the silk folds of her dress. She wet a cloth from a bowl by the bed and leant over her. ‘Let me see how it is.’ 

She pressed the cool cloth to Sansa’s cheek. It made her wince. 

Shae’s jaw steeled, and she was about to speak when there was a gentle knock at the door. She put the cloth down.

The Hound filled the doorway. Shae slapped him hard across the cheek.

‘Shae!’ said Sansa, sitting upright, startled.

Shae leant up towards the Hound’s face. ‘How dare you come back here.’ 

The Hound didn’t say a word, glancing past her into the room at Sansa, his hair hanging in front of his face, and when he found her looking back at him, swiftly dropped his eyes to the floor.

‘Shae. It’s alright,’ said Sansa.

‘It’s not alright,’ Shae said to her with a hiss, still glaring viciously up at him. ‘You were supposed to be one of the good ones.’

The Hound opened his mouth as if to sigh, but nothing came out. ‘Leave us, Shae,’ Sansa said, quietly.

Her maid looked at her sharply. ‘My lady –‘

‘Shae, I promise. You can leave us.’

Shae’s shoulders dropped violently. ‘I’ll be right outside. I’m not going further,’ she said as she stormed out of the room, slamming the door.

The Hound looked utterly torn and pale, and he could barely seem to bear to meet Sansa’s gaze. She swallowed and got up, walking over and stood in front of him, her head tilted up. He brought his fingers to her jaw, and, incredibly lightly, tipped her face a little to the side. He didn’t seem to be breathing, just looking, in a sort of frozen agony, at her cheek.

And then he dropped his hand and spoke in a quiet monotone. ‘I should have let him have my head.’ 

Sansa shook her head. ‘No. I’m not going to be responsible for anyone else’s head.’

He took in a huge breath and exhaled, a jagged, stuttering thing. ‘I’m a craven dog.’ 

She shook her head again. 

‘I – there’s always another path. I – I said I’d protect you.’ He put his fingers up to his eyes, a bloodied bandage around his palm and knuckles. 

‘What did you do to your hand?’

He froze, looked at the bandage, and hastily dropped his arm. ‘It’s the least I - ‘ he looked at her, anguished, then at the wall, closed his eyes – ‘fuck – I – I don’t know how I can - ’ He looked like he might fall apart.

Sansa swallowed, hard. ‘You can make it up to me.’

He looked at her from under his eyebrows, a wounded dog, waiting to be hit.

‘You asked before, and I was – too scared. And I thought – I might be alright. But I was wrong.’ She looked at him with a calm fierceness. ‘I’ll forgive you if you find a way to get me out of here.’

***

Sleep that night is a rocking boat, hurling me about. All I see is Sansa, crashing to the floor, over and over again. I’d tried not to hit her too hard, make it look worse than it was in my armstroke, but – fuck. My hand is fucked, but I don’t let myself tend to it. The pain’s so bad I throw up. 

I hit her. I let him bid me hit her. I should have fucking put my sword in his eye.

In the morning I pace my room. I can’t serve the boy. Can’t stand behind him without needing to disembowel him. I have to get the hells away from here, and from her, so that she never has to see me again.

Can’t quite go without - I have to see if she’s alright.

So I get to her room, part of me wanting to turn tail at every moment. Her maid opens the door and gives me a whack clean across the face, well deserved. I’d sooner Sansa did it though. The bird’s on the bed, and bids her maid leave, and she comes to me and there’s the early bloom on her face, yellow, like a straw stain, and I know it will get worse. I almost break, to see it. Practically want to gut myself for her there and then. But somehow she’s standing straight, trembling like a new leaf but tall, and she says – gods – she says I can have her forgiveness if I get her away. 

My chest feels like a boulder’s swung at it. She’d go with me, now? Hold up. Maybe she doesn’t mean that, exactly. I say _get away where_? and she says _anywhere. Away from here_ and she says _I can’t do it, I’m not staying_. I stand and think and say, _we’d have to get you on a boat, most likely. Up North, or maybe over the water, and find you some protectors and all_. And she looks at me and says, _you have to come_ and I look down at her and my heart gives, just a little. _You don’t want me to come Sansa, not after what I’ve done to you_. And she looks calmer than she’s any right to be and says _but you won’t do it again will you_? and I think, I’d sooner fall on my own sword, and I shake my head and she swallows, her eyes going firm as pebbles and she says _then please help me_.

That’s it. I’m slain. She’s asking me to go with her, and it makes want to die trying.


	5. Chapter 5

Truth be told, I hadn’t been sure how I was going to make this happen. Slice my way through a fighting party, that I can do, but stealth and bribes and promises – more the Spider’s bag of tricks than mine. The coin won on the drunk king’s tourney all that time ago had found its way into the drains and cracks of every gambling house in Fleabottom, and tucked in the belt of the odd toothy whore too. Money is more slippery than a sword in my hands.

The twisted Lannister rodent comes round the corner. _Clegane_ , he says in that voice that says I’ve read books and you haven’t. _Imp_ , I say, and keep walking. _Would it hurt you to call me by name once in while? That slur gets tired very quickly_ , he says. I’ll have to think of a better one then, I say. Bloody man is damned near a third of my size. The thought of him between Sansa’s legs makes me want to pick him up and hurl him through the nearest window. 

What he says next makes me stub my toe on my own boot, though. _I know you care a little for the girl_. I snort, loudly. _Have you not seen the face I’ve given her_ , I say, making sure my voice is spiced and hot. _I have_ , he says, calm, _and I’d wager you could have inflicted rather more damage than that if you’d really intended it_. He swivels his eye up at me, as if I’m the short-arse and he the one who has to stoop at doorways. _Funny_ , he says, _that you didn’t ask which girl I was referring to_.

 _What the fuck do you want, you little shit_ , I say.

***

‘That’s a pretty flower you’re wearing today, my lady.’

Sansa glanced down at her unadorned dress, puzzled for an instant, before realising what Joffrey meant. She made herself look up at him calmly. ‘Thank you, your Grace.’

‘You should thank me, for not feeling the execution block underneath your chin after what you said to me. Ser Ilyn was rather looking forward to having you kneeling beneath him.’ His eyes swung around the throne room.

There was a faint titter from behind her. Sansa concentrated on making her face into a perfect sheet of ice, pouring new water on it, letting it freeze, knowing that the royal executioner was to her left, as rigid as the pillar he stood next to.

The pale yellow of her bruise had begun to blossom and deepen to peach and mauve. She had wondered if that was what the beginning of autumn looked like here.

Perhaps she wouldn’t find out. The Hound had come to her, three days ago, a rap so soft on her chamber door that she had thought at first that Shae had come back.

His eyes had flicked down to her cheek and his shoulders had tensed. ‘I’ve got you passage.’ 

It had felt strange having him here in her chamber again, his head almost touching the ceiling, without the knowledge that Shae was safely outside the door. But she would have to get used to it, if she was to leave with him. 

‘When?’

‘Five days hence.’

It hadn’t occurred to her that it might happen so soon. ‘Five days?’ She had swallowed, hard.

He had eyed her sharply. ‘Have you plans, my lady?’

‘No – I just didn’t know you could arrange it so quickly.’ She had smoothed her skirts and looked at him squarely. ‘Thank you.’

He had given her a cursory nod. 

Sansa’s mind had raced. A ship, then, not horses in the night. It was probably safer that way – Cersei would strew the south with goldcloaks, and there were only so many places to hide. ‘Where will we go?’

He had run a hand through his ragged hair. His knuckles were patched with congealed blood. ‘Pentos.’

Sansa’s heart had panged with disappointment. They weren’t heading north, to Winterfell. But she knew it wasn’t as simple as that. 

The Hound had shifted. ‘Not what you wanted?’ He had looked uncomfortable, almost angry. ‘Maybe it’s not what I want either, but it’s that or take your chances on another ship with an easy captain coming this way before you’re bound to the smallest lord in Westeros.’

Sansa had shaken her head. ‘I want to leave.’ She had looked at him as boldly as she could. ‘I’ll go.’

The Hound had eyed her for slightly too long before abruptly breaking his gaze and studying the curtains fiercely. ‘It leaves at twilight. You’ll not be able to bring much. And we’ll have to – disguise you.’

‘How?’

His eyes had flickered over her hair. 

‘No.’ Sansa had folded her arms over her chest.

His mouth had twitched, just a little. ‘There are worse things.’

‘I’m not cutting my hair.’

He had breathed a laugh through his nose. ‘Everyone in Kings Landing knows that hair of yours. It’s –‘ he stopped. ‘It has to go. And you need to darken it, too.’

Sansa’s shoulders had sagged. ‘I’ll get Shae to do it.’

He had narrowed his eyes at her a little. ‘You trust her, then?’

She had tightened her jaw. ‘Can she come?’

His shoulders had stiffened. ‘Do you want her to?’

‘Well, it would be good to have a lady’s maid, to help me with –‘ she stopped when she saw his face beginning to twist into a sneer. 

‘I forget. You ladies. You’re puppets, the lot of you. You need someone to dress you and feed you and tell you to put one foot in front of the other.’

Sansa had folded her arms around her chest. ‘It’s just – what I’m used to. I can’t help being highborn.’

He had turned to the window irritably. ‘Oh ay, it’s a tough life.’

She had felt her face tighten. Had he forgotten her father? Everything she’d endured here? She turned away from him. ‘Fine. I’ll do without her.’ The light from the window was the colour of sour cream.

He had taken a step towards her and she had felt her eyes on her cheek again. The unbruised side of her face had reddened. ‘You’ll need to pack a bundle. Nothing unnecessary.’

She had looked up at him. ‘What will you take?’

He had patted the hilt of his sword, a glint in his eye. ‘I don’t need much.’ His face became more serious. ‘Five days. Be ready. Don’t do anything stupid.’ He had walked to the door.

‘Wait.’ Sansa had gone to the polished table underneath the window and picked up her jewels. She had held them out to him as he stooped in the doorway.

‘I don’t go in for fineries, my lady,’ he had said, leaning down to her. 

For once, she hadn’t smelt wine on his breath. ‘To pay the captain of the boat.’

‘No need.’ He had looked down at her, faintly proud. ‘It’s on me.’

***

Her bruise was becoming a red sky at morning. I see it, sunrising on her face, in the throne room, once at Maegor’s, underneath her blushes at the boy’s lazy fucking insults. I get a better look at it when I go to her chambers to deliver the news, and feel a strange sort of rage, a rage at myself for doing it to her. I’ve never hated myself more.

She’s not all smiles about the plan. Wouldn’t blame her if she was having second thoughts – stowing away with a big ugly dog isn’t exactly the spice that is sprinkled in all the old songs. I can’t help being my old self, just a bit, just to remind her who I am. But she stands as tall, agrees, and a little bit of me feels proud, seeing that bit of Stark wolfling rising up in her.

What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, though. That the Imp doesn’t want to marry her either. How he’d pass up the chance to have her in his bed every night is beyond me, but he’s a twisted little fuck. He’s bid me take her west, to Riverrun, or near enough, to her mother, in exchange for his brother. Fool. The Young Wolf will never return the Kingslayer for a chit of a sister when he could return him for peace in the North, or Joff’s head, neither of which will ever happen. So I’m taking his coin and doing it my way. 

I’ll get her back. Eventually. 

***

Sansa had never been on a ship before, save the skiffs that she and Margaery or Shae would take, bobbing along the White Harbour coastline, safe in view of the Keep, on a day when the sun turned the waves into melted butter. She wondered how much the boat might swell, or what it might be like when all you could see was – sea.

And Pentos. She was frightened - she couldn’t help it. Coming to Kings Landing had been strange enough, though she’d been excited, then. A lifetime ago. To cross the Narrow Sea and be without any ally but – him, made her hotly nervous. He could still be mean when he felt like it. But with Joffrey continuing to taunt her and no sign of her brother’s army heading towards the capital, what choice did she have? She tried to imagine walking in a humid harbour, filled with people with caramel-coloured skin, and the Hound walking by her side. It seemed a little ridiculous.

That night, Sansa watched Shae in her mirror as she brushed her hair. Shae had been acting strangely towards her these last few days. She would catch her eyeing her darkly, her jaw tight, the corners of her eyes narrowing.

Shae caught her gaze. ‘What, my lady?’

Sansa pressed her lips together carefully. ‘I need to tell you something.’

Shae glanced at her in the mirror. ‘You shouldn’t. Keep your secrets.’

‘I have to.’ Sansa took a deep breath. ‘I’m leaving.’

Shae stopped brushing. The gulls made arcing cries outside the window. ‘Where are you going?’

Sansa’s voice dropped, nothing more than a skein on the breeze. ‘Pentos.’ 

Shae stiffened for a moment, and then continued to brush her hair, as if Sansa had said she was going to the Godswood or the sept. ‘Pentos is full of whores and sailors looking for whores. Why are you going there?’ She suddenly put the brush down on the table and placed her hands on Sansa’s shoulders. ‘Who is taking you?’

Sansa knew better than to tell her. ‘A – friend.’

Shae made Sansa turn around and stared at her searchingly. Sansa concentrated on keeping her eyes blank and wide. ‘Who is it? Is it Littlefinger?’

Sansa shook her head vehemently. 

Shae took Sansa’s face in her hands, pressing a little too tightly. ‘Don’t go with him. You can’t trust him. You can’t trust anyone here. You know that.’

‘I trust you, though.’ Shae began to shake her head, slowly, her eyes travelling the room. ‘It’s not him, I promise. I would never –‘ she thought of his small, ferret-like eyes on her neck, and gave an involuntary shudder. ‘I need you to help me with something, Shae. No one else can.’ Sansa straightened her neck. ‘I don’t want to marry Lord Tyrion.’

Shae’s breath caught just slightly, then. She put her lips together and touched the side of Sansa’s head, her fingers light. ‘I don’t want you to marry him either.’


	6. Chapter 6

It’s time. I’ve a burning in my chest like bad wine, thinking of all the things that can go wrong. I don’t give three shits to what they’d do to me, but to the bird – slamming my eyes shut doesn’t make the thoughts go away. Still, I’ve done all I can. Planned the route to the harbour where – gods willing – we won’t be seen. Packed some belongings, though what I need beyond weapons and a wineskin fits into a sack the size of my hand. Bid farewell to my horse too, who I suppose I’ll not see again, the great steaming bastard. Hope he gets a decent master on him, not one of the Kingsguard cunts.

I knock on her chamber door, quiet as rain. A maid answers, and I think, who the fuck? and then I realise it’s her. Her, with her hair shorn to her chin, and as black as mine. The look on her face makes me want to crumple up in a pile laughing but I keep it in, just. _Don’t say anything_ , she says, and I just shake my head. _It’ll work, little bird_ I say and she says _I look horrible_ and I think you could rub your face in pigswill and dress you in rags and you’d still light up the damned sky but I say _it’ll grow back. Your head won’t. Follow me, and try not to sound like a bloody princess_.

***

Sansa’s heart felt like it had separated into shards. It rattled in her chest. They were deep in the belly of the castle, in corridors that smelt of boiled vegetables and oats, the stones slimy to touch. She was wearing a dress fit for a serving-girl. It itched, and was too tight at the waist. All she could think was what might happen if they were caught, and what they would do to him. 

She was following the Hound, carrying a small bundle of her belongings. He didn’t speak, cowled in his cloak, a giant raven-ghost sweeping in front of her. Her mouth was dry. What if this was all a terrible mistake? Perhaps marrying Lord Tyrion wouldn’t be so bad. He’d look after her, probably, and she’d still have Shae around to protect her. The Hound was a killer, and proud of it. 

He turned round to her suddenly. ‘Best be quiet now.’ His voice was a deep rumble in his chest.

‘I _was_ being quiet,’ she said in a whisper.

He glanced down at her feet. ‘Aurochs could do better than that.’

She flushed. He grinned at her slightly and she saw, by the one flickering candle at the corner in front of them, that his eyes were glistening. He was relishing the danger. He was – _excited_. 

‘Stay close. We’re to move quickly now. If anyone comes, run, and keep running until you get to the harbour. Look for the Sunfish. I’ve paid him some already.’ He fished out three coins from his purse-belt. ‘If I don’t follow, give him this and tell him I couldn’t make it.’

Sansa took them from him and gazed up at him, feeling alarm rising in her throat. ‘But – what will you do? If someone comes?’

He smiled. ‘Kill them all for you.’

***

I could do with a drink right now. Steady my nerves. Not because I’m fleeing – I don’t care about that. Because she’s there, tripping after me so loudly the whole damned castle can probably hear her. I try to imagine what will happen out there, on the boat, and in Pentos. What we’ll do. Me and her. Gods, concentrate on getting her out of Kings Landing first, dog. Hold your fucking horses before you start dreaming of – gods, I’m more fool than Dontos. 

It’s stuffy as hells down here. Smells like dead cats. But it’s like I have to pass through the bladder of this place until it shits me out the other side, and then I’ll be free. We both will. 

Hold up – voices. I push her against the wall. They’re coming closer. I lean down to her ear. 

_Run._

***

Sansa had fled, quickly, holding her skirts up to her calves, her breath catching in her throat. The guards had hardly glanced at her, perhaps not even seen her at all, and as the argument turned into bloodshed, she had shrunk away into the shadows and dashed down the dank corridors, hearing the sound of swords on stone, swords on metal, swords in _flesh_. She thought she could hear him, his deep grunts, mixed in with cries of anger and cries of pain, but she couldn’t be sure.

She had come out at a harbour that she didn’t recognise, far from the refined jetties that she had ever set foot on. This was one of the great trader’s quays, packed with ships and smaller boats of all shapes and sizes, and, even as the sun was beginning to lower, full of noise and smells of rotting fish, burnt black bread, sharp ale and spices. 

At first she had waited by the end of the tunnel, waiting for the Hound. Any moment, she had thought, he will come out, and they’d go together, and she’d feel bold and brave, a sailor, as strong as those muscled women she sometimes saw swinging by ropes from the decks.

But he hadn’t come. Her heart sinking, she had walked slowly along, her head bowed, peeking out through the coarse cloak that the Hound had given her, looking for her ship. 

There. _Sunfish_ was painted on the bowside of a carrack in curling writing, peeling off a little. A fat merchant ship, relatively short but with tall, steep sides, three masts and a high-rounded stern. The sails were burnt orange with blue suns, their rays shaped into small, curved tail-fins. Men in baggy shirts with rolled-up sleeves and sweat shimmering on their brows were throwing barrels and boxes up onto the deck, their shouts loose and lazy-sounding.

Sansa stood watching it, her heart pummelling in her chest. There was no sign of the Hound. She’d left him there, to fight alone, to maybe die alone, for her. How could she go on, on her own? She would be eaten alive, in Pentos if not on the boat by those sailors. Perhaps she should go back. She tried to imagine how she would explain why she had short, black hair, and Joffrey’s face when he realised that she had tried to escape. Or what the Hound would think if he knew she’d flown back into the Keep, terrified, after all he’d done. Fear pinched her throat. Oh Gods, why had she left him there to fight?

She took a step forward, and then inched back again. 

‘Never seen a boat before, little bird?’ 

Sansa whipped round. The Hound was standing behind her, his chest heaving slightly, blood flecked diagonally across his unburnt cheek. Part of her wanted to put her hand up to it. 

His eyes looked wild, but clouded and calmed as he looked at the ship. ‘Go on, then.’

Sansa took a deep breath, still wondering that he was here, alive. She nodded, and he gently pushed her in the back towards it.

***

It had almost been tight there, for a heartbeat. Five goldcloaks, swords unsheathed, looking for me, knowing I’ve taken off, and Sansa looking at them like a damned mouse before an eagle lands. But they’ve no interest in a dark-haired wench, and we start to fight and she becomes part of the wall, nothing more. And my sword’s doing the work while my head’s elsewhere, seeing her dash down those corridors, following the route she’ll take, round the corner, through the iron gate I’ve made sure is unlocked, out into the belly of the Keep, and to the edge of the harbour. I’m thinking run, Sansa, run and get there, and all the while my sword’s thirsty for its own sort of wine. Takes a time though, and for a while they almost have me. I’m getting rusty. I take off an arm and cut a groin and split a neck and then I get a hilt bashed into the back of my skull and crash down to the ground, and I’m thinking, the gods damn it all if I’m not going to get on that ship with her and see the Pentoshi sun on her bloody face, and I get myself up and finish it. I walk on, leave my last pile of dead Westerosis for a while, a bundle of red and gold.

The look she gives me when I find her, standing there at the harbour, her hair making that long neck glow, makes it all worthwhile. Though she doesn’t look so happy when I get us on and we meet the captain and he says _it’s a pleasure to have you and your daughter on board ser_. I know he’s only being so damned air-and-grace because I’ve just pressed more coin into his palm. And she jerks her head at me, her eyebrows halfway up her forehead, her face going red as a sweet onion. 

_Well, what did you expect me to say?_ I say to her as we walk over the deck. _Works a treat now you’ve the same hair as me_. She turns round and I almost clatter into her. She glares at me and says _stop smiling_ and I bite my lip. 

_Ay my lady_ , I say, and she walks again and I think, I’d like to see the glare you give me when you see we’ve only one chamber and all.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta so much for the comments so far, they are very much appreciated! A little-ish chapter...

Sansa had no idea that the boat would roll so deeply, the gait of an old, mad ox. She stood on the deck, her knuckles whitening on the rail, taking in deep lungfuls of the sea air, and watching the harbour recede. 

The Hound had gone to seek out food for them both, and she was alone on one side of the ship, not quite believing that this was happening. She was escaping. She seemed to be the only female on this ship, save a couple of slight-looking serving wenches carrying jugs of ale wider than their hips, whose eyes darted up to her bruised face, and then the Hound’s scars, curiously, before they scurried away. The captain was a broad-bellied man with a generous face and a strange expression, as if he was transfixed, until she realised that he had one glass eye. He had bawled orders to his men almost as soon as she and the Hound had come on deck, and the sails had made great slapping sounds as they took against the wind, the men on the oarsdeck groaning as one.

The light had almost faded, and the Red Keep walls were purpling, beginning to be lit with torches for the night. It looked so different from out here, the place she’d thought of as a labyrinthine prison – it looked small. She felt her heart lifting, like a cotton skirt on a washline, as the sky deepened and night painted itself over the castle. 

The boat pitched, and Sansa leaned with it, looking straight down into the black water. Nausea swirled in her throat.

‘Alright?’ The Hound was back, with black bread and cheese, which he was already tearing into. ‘Supper for the lady,’ he said, with his mouth full.

It wasn’t exactly the sort of feast she’d been used to. Even when she was a little peckish before bedtime, Shae could get her grapes, almonds, honey. ‘Thank you,’ she said, taking some pieces from him delicately. Eating would help, she was sure. She looked back to the harbour, the edge of all the world she knew, the ground on which her brothers, her mother, and maybe Arya too - stood. Her heart swung. Bran and Rickon hadn’t perished at Winterfell, it was thought. But no one knew about Arya. Whether she lived or had died. She watched the waves scud and pile over each other, and thought of her three youngest siblings jumping all over each other when they were little. She couldn’t be dead. They were all alive, somewhere.

The Hound was facing outwards too. She wondered about his family – all she knew about was his brother. Was he leaving others behind, somewhere?

‘What do you feel, in here?’ She tapped her chest.

He coughed through a mouthful of food. ‘What the hells sort of a question is that?’

She ignored his brutishness, nodding towards the land. ‘About leaving. You’ve been there a lot longer than I.’

He chewed more slowly, following her gaze. ‘Don’t feel anything. Not about that place.’

Perhaps he didn’t have any other family, then. But it had been his home. ‘Even though you had, I don’t know, a duty?’

‘Fuck duty.’ He spat a bit of bread overboard.

She wondered what they would do in Pentos. She had her jewels and the Hound seemed to have some coin for now, but surely it wouldn’t last forever. ‘Well, work then, I mean you had work, and lodgings, and –‘

‘Want me back there, do you?’ His voice began to grow a harder edge.

Sansa sighed. ‘No.’ Why did he always have to grow dark, and so quickly? She never knew what would make his voice drop into his chest, get that graininess in it. She ate her food silently, cursing him.

His daughter. She felt a strange sort of anger at that. Partly she didn’t want to be anyone’s daughter but her own father’s. And partly she felt a sort of tangled, desperately curling embarrassment at having to play that role, with all of the sailors looking at them. She wasn’t a child. He could have said anything, that she was his servant, his sister, his wi - 

And then the boat rolled again, and her stomach lifted too.

***

Reckon a boat is much like riding a horse, except that this horse thunders and foams more than a hundred Strangers, and the ground pitches underneath your damned feet, never resting. The wind’s different out here too – it draws salt from your flesh, and throws more at it. I’ve a fist twisting up my insides – can’t even look at my damned wineskin – but she’s worse. Takes about three breaths before she’s green at the neck and watching her dinner spin away from her on the sea, holding onto the woodrail for dear life. I send her to our chamber.

Kings Landing has gone from sight, and I’m left with a damned sky as big as anything I’ve ever seen. And stars like someone’s chucked a load of shined gravel up there. The sea’s got a sound all of its own, too. The men on here are giving me odd looks. Don’t know what to make of me, maybe. Of us. When she asked what I was feeling, I almost choked to death on my own tongue. She wouldn’t have wanted to know the truth, that I was watching her pick at the bread like it was sugarspin, dreaming of sharing that bed below decks, nuzzling into her new hair, which smells woody and sharp.

They all stink of tar and sour wine, this lot. I think, maybe they’ve seen that she’s gone down there alone. Maybe they think to find out what’s under her - 

***

One chamber. 

Sansa felt her stomach slop about her body, untethered, and clutched herself tight as the boat rolled again. She was supposed to be a lady, not a wasting vessel of bile. This was not to way to begin a dramatic escape. Her eyes travelled weakly about the room – if you could call it that. The one candle threw queasy shadows onto the wooden stool, the tiny, barred window, the sodden floorboards, and the bed she lay in. She had vomited twice more since she had come down here, into a bucket that leaked slightly, and could hear it sloshing about. You definitely didn’t get this in the songs.

She kept bringing her hand up to the ends of her hair. It was only hair, but she missed it. It was her. The sea-salt had already stiffened the strands to tarred straw. She’d brought more black walnut oil in case she needed it, tucked away in her bundle, but she hoped she wouldn’t have to. She wondered if Shae had been able to get it out of her hands by now – it had stained her fingers down to the knuckles. The Hound had grinned at her when he’d seen its colour, and she’d hated him for it. No matter how much he’d done for her, he couldn’t ever resist a chance to jape at her. It made her clench her teeth.

And what of – tonight? He’d arranged one chamber for them both. She supposed it was safer this way, amongst these rough men, with their missing teeth and lurching looks, but – where would he sleep? Part of her was so weak she didn’t care at all, but another, the part that still pictured her mother’s face, and her lips drawn tight together, dreaded him coming in.

The door creaked.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting this up quickly for TopShelfCrazy...

When I get down, she’s rolled up tight in a ball like a hedgehog, just bundles of hair sticking out, black spikes. The air’s overripe. _You alright little bird_? I say, keeping my voice low in case she’s asleep. _No_ , she says, the word like a creak of the ship. I make her drink water and she looks at me with green eyes and a green face and takes two sips, slowly. I try to make her have more but she says _can’t_ and flops back down, limp as a mummer’s doll, turning her back to me.

I look at the stool. That’ll break under me as soon as I sit on it. The floor’s as damp as an old man’s breeches. I put my cloak down on it, carefully loosen my armour, my eyes on her. She doesn’t move a jot. One day, bird, you’ll do this for me, I think, my head in the clouds again.

It’s like lying in a bog. A bog that moves, slowly from side to side, never in rhythm. Once you think you’ve got it, it catches you out, and lurches so heavily in the other direction that you go with it. My back’s freezing. My head clunks on the boards.

Fuck this. I get up, quiet, and sit at the side of the bed.

She half-rolls over, eyes like the ocean-slop in the harbour, and wide, too. _I need to sleep, little bird_ , I say. She goes onto her side again, her back to me, and I get in next to her, and careful as I can bring my hand underneath her ribs to move her further over. She’s sleeping in all her clothes, but I can feel her heat, and dampness too, from her fever. She’s as light as a bundle of laundry. A little sound, like a faraway gull, goes in her throat and she gives a shiver.

Gods, my heart’s going now. Might as well be standing up in the room pounding on a bloody war drum. Lying in bed with the bird, with Sansa, Westeros at our backs. It’s all I can do not to put my arm out, pull her into me, put my face in her black hair. Hair that I know is fire, underneath. It’ll burn again, soon enough.

And then she crunches up, leans over the side of the bed, and throws up again into the bucket.

***

She never thought she would feel quite like this. Her head hurt, her stomach was a pit of fire, and a trail of cold sweat was trickling down her neck. But she wasn’t afraid. She should be – the fiercest killer in the Seven Kingdoms, at least along with his brother, was lying inches away from her. He was sleeping, facing her, and his breathing wove in with the creaking of the ship, an ancient crone’s bones, and with the slow gnashing of the sea. 

Of course he should sleep here. He’d rescued her. She’d asked him to help her escape, and he’d done so, risking his own life. He was leaving his own home to get her away. Daughter, one chamber – what did it matter? She owed him everything.

His great form under the blankets blotted out much of what remained of the candle. A lock of his hair hung diagonally over his face, and kept being dragged further into his mouth when he inhaled. It made him look almost - vulnerable. Very carefully, she dared herself to reach out and tug it away, letting it fall by his ear. He gave a loud breath in, and smacked his lips together slightly in his sleep. She bit her lip with a grin.

Sansa could just see the ridges of his burns, tiny jagged waves in the skin, and the way his earlobe melted into his neck. She wondered what he would have looked like if Gregor hadn’t pushed him into the fire. The unburnt side of his face was smooth, and covered in dense, black beard. There were lines at the edges of his eyes.

The Hound opened them suddenly. ‘Thought you didn’t like to look.’ 

Sansa swallowed. ‘I didn’t know you were awake.’ Her voice sounded very small.

He sniffed. ‘Am now.’ He stared at her. ‘Go on then, have a good look.’ 

Sansa refused to be frightened. Not any more. He was her only ally now, and she meant to keep him that way. She stared back. ‘I don’t know why you think I care about that any more.’

They both lay perfectly still, facing each other. They were lying there like family, she thought. Like brother and sister. Like husband and wife.

‘You used to damned near run away rather than look at me,’ he said.

‘I’m older now. And – I know you - more. I know that doesn’t mean anything.’ She could hear him chewing on the inside of his cheek. ‘Anyway, sometimes I was only scared because of the way you looked at me.’

He made a dry noise in his throat. ‘What the bloody hells does that mean?’ 

‘You would look at me like you hated me.’ His eyes went to the ceiling. ‘You _would_.’ 

The ship made a long, groaning sound. The Hound didn’t speak. Perhaps she had angered him again. She pulled the covers further over her shoulders and went to turn away.

‘You’re wrong.’ He turned to face her again, and there was a dark, strange look in his eyes. They held her, and she didn’t dare move. She had always been scared of his eyes, more than anything else, and the glowering grey loathing that had swept over everything, including her. But this was different. This was – new. His breath warmed her cheek. He was looking at her like - her heart rose to her throat.

The boat lurched again, a slow pitch in the same direction for an impossibly long time. Sansa rolled into the Hound and heard the stool tumble over and the bucket topple. There was a broad, low, stretching sound. Perhaps the ship was going to tip right over, and she’d drown, clinging onto the Hound, becoming salt and sea. She kept her nose to his chest, whimpering slightly, and shut her eyes tight. But it righted again, and she heard men shouting. 

His arm was around her. He smelt of sweat and leather and wine, and his nose was in her hair. 

She looked up at him, her chin on his chest. ‘The bucket.’ The stench of her vomit was filling the room even more than before, acrid and heavy. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It doesn’t matter. We’ll get someone to clean it up in the morning.’ 

He wasn’t moving his arm. It lay heavily across her ribs, and was incredibly warm. His mouth opened, just a little. She heard his breath form, his chest rise. ‘Go to sleep,’ he said, very gently.

Sansa turned her face to the ceiling, staying tucked up right against him. She could feel his heart, a slow, calm thud behind his ribcage. Her stomach burned again. It didn’t feel like seasickness.

And then the door flew open, and men with swords were there. 

The captain followed them in. ‘I’d heard about brothers and sisters, but not fathers and daughters as well. You bloody Westerosi.’

And they all laughed.

***

I swear not long into the night I felt her fingers on me, on my cheek, my hair. And I woke up and she told me she didn’t care about my face and my damned heart broke up like an iceberg. And the ship rolled and, gods, it could have been a good night for me, there. Best night of my life, probably.

But that’s forgotten now. I’ve ruined everything. 

Seems I made the wrong choice. Chose the wrong fucking captain to give my - the _Imp’s_ – coin to. Somebody else knew about the whole thing. A spy. But not one of the Spider’s, or Joff’s. 

Stannis. The blackheart who would be king. Robert without the personality. Renly without the heart, or the lust for cock. He might have lost Blackwater but he hadn’t given up. 

And now Sansa and I are standing on deck, trussed up, swords pointed at our necks, and I can see the great sharp folds of a castle, jutting out from a cliff like a load of black blades, as the sun starts to come up.

Dragonstone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tee hee - thought I'd try and go somewhere I haven't seen very much in this context...


	9. Chapter 9

Sansa’s wrists burned. Her arms were pulled behind her back and her hands were tied. She was standing as still as she could on the tilting deck, a stinging spray fizzing onto her face. Her stomach was wrung out with sickness and fear. Two men stood either side of her, but at least their swords were lowered.

It was worse for the Hound. After the men had entered their chamber, he had leapt up and bashed the skulls of two of them against the wall, and was going for a third when he was overpowered and the captain put a dagger to his throat. Now, as well as his hands, his ankles were tied together and five men stood guard around him, the points of their swords pressed against his neck and chest. When the ship rolled, they made a play of losing their balance, their blades jerking, laughing heartily. Blood trickled from a cut on his eyebrow, but he didn’t seem to notice. He didn’t look at Sansa, just growled at them all, telling them that he’d take them apart with his bare hands once he was free.

It didn’t look like they were going to be free anytime soon. The great castle brooded above them, sharply angled and impossibly dark with the pale dawn light behind it. The thin, jutting battlements made her think of the card-stacking game she and Arya would play when they were younger. Each tower had small, deadly-looking turrets, and she could see the shapes of gargoyles gesticulating down at her accusingly. She shuddered.

It took all five men to haul the Hound to his feet, and when they did, he went to head-butt one of them and another hit him on the ear with the hilt of his sword. The Hound stumbled and spat on the deck. They pushed him towards Sansa as the steep cliff walls made everything grow darker again, the boat sliding into harbour. When he caught her eye, his furious eyes turned foggy.

‘I’m sorry, little bird.’ His voice was as heavy as an anchor.

Sansa shook her head and spoke quietly. ‘You didn’t know.’

‘I should have.’ He looked up at the black stone. ‘And now I’ve brought you to an even worse fate.’

‘It could never be worse.’ She lowered her voice further. ‘Sandor –‘ he flinched at the use of his name – ‘I want you to know – I am so very grateful for what you did. For helping me.’

She leant her body against his arm. He was almost trembling.

‘Some help,’ he said hoarsely.

***

The stairway seemed to go on forever. Perhaps they would emerge up amongst the clouds, she thought, not quite believing that they were here, in the first house of the Targaryens. Dragons were everywhere – curving claws held up the torches on the walls, and snarling faces glared down at her from archways. Everything seemed very cold, and slick with damp. She could see her breath misting the air in front of her.

They were led to a central keep, and into a large room that faced the slate-grey sea, with curving stone arches open to the buffeting wind. In the middle of the room was the largest table she had ever seen, but certainly not one you could hold a feast upon. It was strangely-carved, and knobbled with ridges and bumps. Parts of it were painted dark-green, others grey, with thick blue veins running through it. It was a map. A map of Westeros.

‘I had not thought to find you within these walls, Lady Sansa.’

Sansa’s heart jerked. A man was sitting on a high chair on her right, high enough that one could see the whole table from it. Another man stood alert next to the throne, his hands folded behind his back.

The seated man rose and descended the stone steps, stopping a few hands away from her. His dark hair was receding slightly and he wore dull black leather. The gaunt, tight-stretched skin of his face made her think of leather, too. 

He drew his eyebrows together and gazed at her, a look of cool stone and steel. ‘You are Lady Sansa Stark, are you not?’

Sansa glanced at the Hound, who was flanked by guards. His shoulders sagged and he gave the faintest nod. ‘Yes, ser,’ she said.

‘Yes, your _Grace_.’

 _This_ was Stannis? He had the same blunt northern vowels as King Robert, but none of the richness, either in his voice or in his manner.

‘I’m sorry, yes, your Grace.’

‘Untie her, then.’ A guard came and undid the ropes from her hands. She rubbed her thumb on her wrist and tried to look for Winterfell on the table. ‘I might have almost taken you for one of my own kin.’ Stannis’ eyes flickered over her hair. ‘I’d word that you were a redhead.’

Sansa darted a look at the Hound again. Stannis had not asked him to be untied. He stood awkwardly, looking defiant. ‘I – I am, your Grace, but – ‘

‘Go on.’ 

‘I was escaping.’ She looked at the floor. ‘Trying to escape.’ 

Stannis pulled his bottom lip in with a front tooth, looking at her thoughtfully. ‘And why would you want to do that?’

Sansa took a deep breath. ‘King Jo- Joffrey wanted to marry me to Lord Tyrion, your Grace.’

Stannis’ shoulders stiffened. Of course, he would hold no love for the man who poured wildfire on half of his ships, and trapped the dying with that great sea-chain. ‘A tall thing like you and the Imp? I’d like to have seen that.’

He continued to gaze at her. She might as well have been looking at a cliff-face. He didn’t seem to _breathe_. Then his eyes moved past her ear and further behind her. ‘And why, pray, are you with this one, my lady?’

Sansa turned to face the Hound, who still had ropes binding his arms behind him. The blood from his eyebrow had pooled into his beard, and glistened there. ‘This is Sandor Clegane, your Grace. He helped me escape.’

‘I know who he is.’ Stannis walked over to him, only reaching the Hound’s shoulders. ‘You killed a lot of my men.’

The Hound sniffed and looked at the wall. ‘Ay, probably I did. It’s what you do when you’re Kingsguard.’

‘Guard to a boy who _would_ be king. A usurper. A result of incest.’

‘Not my place to question the king.’ The Hound slid his eyes to Stannis. ‘ _A_ king. Your Grace.’ There was the merest trace of sarcasm in his voice.

‘My sons had the skin melted off their bones by your wildfire.’ The other man stepped closer to them all. He was heavily bearded, and his skin was reddish and flaked. A small leather pouch hung from his neck.

The Hound eyed him, disinterested. ‘You think I like fire?’ He jerked the burnt side of his face towards the man. ‘Not my doing.’

Stannis didn’t move. ‘Pray explain why you’re not with your boy king now.’

The Hound’s eyes flitted towards Sansa’s and to the wall again. ‘Every man has his limits.’

Stannis turned back to Sansa. ‘The captain of the Sunfish said you were engaged in bed with him.’ 

Sansa felt her neck redden. ‘I was very sick, your Grace, from the boat. And frightened. He was just – comforting me.’

Stannis frowned at her. ‘Not very seemly behaviour for a highborn girl.’

‘N- no, your Grace.’ The Hound’s eyes clouded slightly, then. 

‘And who did that to you?’ Stannis’ eyes were on her bruised cheek.

‘One of the – Joffrey’s guards.’ She looked at her feet. ‘What will you do with us, your Grace?’

‘Us?’ The word was light, tossed in the air, disappearing out to sea. ‘You, my lady, shall be my guest for now. You’re going to be useful to me.’ Stannis looked musingly at the Hound. ‘A butcher, traitor, and kidnapper. I should execute you myself.’

Sansa’s breath snagged.

The Hound’s face set. ‘Go on, then.’

‘Your Grace –‘ the bearded man spoke. ‘It might be worth keeping hold of him. He could tell us quite a bit about the state of the city, the guards.’

Stannis remained looking at the Hound, a statue. Then he sniffed and addressed the guards. ‘Take him to the cells. Let him rot for now.’

***

Fuck them all. Fuck the Lannisters. Fuck the Baratheons. Fuck the Starks.

Smells like death down here. They dragged me over a stone bridge so high I swear I saw my heart smash down there on the rocks. And now I’m slung in a cell that sounds like it’s under the sea. There’s a fucking starfish on the wall, and seaweed like dripping snot, which means that if a storm comes, I’m fucked.

I know what he’ll do, that saddle-faced blackheart. Hostage her, marry her off to any half-bred Baratheon he can find, and kill me, soon enough. Don’t know what I’m doing wasting down here. Someone give me a sword and let me fight my way to death. 

I try and remember what it was like with my arm round her. Ribs under my forearm. She didn’t pull away, scurry to the far edge of the bed. She’d - stayed.

She smelt of vomit, and I didn’t care. I would have kissed her and it would have been as sweet as a summer orchard. 

Still, she’s realised her mistake now. She was ashamed to have been found in bed with me. Course she was. Me a bit of midborn rot and her – 

Hells, it’s cold.


	10. Chapter 10

Sansa had been given a dark-purple dress, a heavy thing that pulled her shoulders in. She wondered if it belonged to Stannis’ wife. She remembered hearing the maids idly giggle about Lady Selyse in the weeks before Blackwater – that she was more in love with the new faith from across the sea than her husband, that she was mad and raked the walls with her nails and screamed all day long, that she’d slept with their halfwit fool and birthed a fish.

A shiver ran through her again, even though the room was warm. She had been in here all day, a dolorous chamber with dark green curtains and damp rushes on the floor. Something smelt sickly and sweet. It looked down onto a cliff so steep that it made her feel ill all over again and she’d had to lie down on the bed, the room swinging around her. She’d been given a bath though, and food, which she picked at carefully, her stomach still sore. There was no sound here, apart from the boom of the sea – no maid’s footsteps, voices of servants or guards. Everything was swallowed up by the black stone.

She wondered how the Hound fared. Less well, she was sure of that. They’d yanked him away, and he’d cursed and spat, not looking at her. A pang of guilt throbbed in her stomach. He’d done this all for her, when he could have still been in King’s Landing, with his own room, men to command. And now she was sitting in a warm chamber, too warm, and she would be fed and could sleep on this bed, while he – Gods, where had they put him? He was somewhere beneath her, perhaps in the circular tower she could see from her window, the one that jutted out right into the sea. He was captured, and uncomfortable, and alone.

A bed. She had breathed him in, the leather and sweat of him. He had put his arm round her, and his voice had been the gentlest she’d ever heard from him. She hadn’t moved. She’d felt – safe. 

It was all her fault.

There was a knock. A maid entered, and Sansa could see the guards at either side of the door, guards who had been there the whole time. A guest she may be, but Stannis wasn’t planning for her to go anywhere.

‘You’re invited to supper with his Grace and Lady Selyse.’

Sansa sighed and stood up. Time to play the part again.

***

I’ll go fucking mad down here. There’s not a single other man with me, none alive anyway. I’ve called out enough times, and all I hear is the stone throwing my voice back at me, just once, the word all broken up.

There’s another smell down here, too. Shit. Shit and piss. One corner of my cell reeks of it. Someone was down here of late, then. Wonder what happened to him.

Gods.

The candle spits its last. Flame-red hair turning black.

***

Everything in the castle wore shadows like a cloak. The feasting chamber was no different – its great candelabras dripped fat drops of wax, but the room still brooded oppressively.

‘That’s a rather more fitting look for a lady.’ Stannis was seated at the far end of a long, slim table, his back as straight as a sheet of iron. The table was stone, black again, and there were no furnishings, no cloths on the chairs, no flowers. 

Sansa curtsied carefully. ‘Thank you, your Grace.’

A lady was seated at the other end by Sansa, and she rose in a sudden movement. Her eyes were bright, too bright, and her face pale but for two pinches of unnatural colour high on her cheeks. She came very close, staring at Sansa as if she were a book in Tyroshi or Braavosi, and put a warm, too warm, hand on her face. 

‘Welcome to Dragonstone, my dear. It is an honour to have you here.’ Her hand pressed further. ‘It has been a long while since we have had female guests, but I hope –‘

‘- That’s quite enough, Selyse.’ Stannis spoke with a trace of irritability. ‘Let the girl eat.’

Supper was served, Sansa sitting at the middle of the long table. There would have been room for twenty more guests between them all. No one spoke as the two servants brought in fish soup, though she could hear the sea on the rocks far below them, like a great door banging in the wind. She was still swaying slightly from seasickness – the table was rocking, just a little.

‘It’s a pity you’re not a boy.’ 

Sansa looked up. 

Stannis was eyeing her inscrutably. ‘I’d marry you to my daughter to bring your brother to heel.’ He went back to his soup. ‘You’re a pretty thing, mind. I’d take you myself if I wasn’t already married. Perhaps you might even give me a son or two, unlike this one.’

Sansa shot a glance at Selyse, but the lady only gazed back at her glassily, nodding her encouragement. 

Stannis mopped at the corner of his mouth with a small black cloth. ‘Still, I will have word sent to your brother that you are here. And in the meanwhile decide best who to marry you to.’

Married. That was all they ever wanted to do with her – pass her around like a piece of prize gold, traders measuring her weight in their hands, bargaining over her cost. This was the man she thought would protect her when he won the battle of Blackwater. She’d refused the Hound’s offer of escape that night in the hope of his protection. But she knew better than to protest now. Stannis was stonily calm but she sensed a deep, boiling anger in him. She looked down at the plate of quail in wine that had been placed before her, and wondered what they were feeding the Hound.

***

My gut’s torn up. I’ve eaten nothing for a day. Is it still day? Fuck me if I know. It’s as black as Stranger’s haunch down here, and there’s been no guard. My bones aren’t getting any drier. Hold up – a light’s flickering down the way, I think. Is it? My eyes playing tricks already, maybe. Then I hear – seven hells. A chill, a new one, spreads through me. 

There’s _singing_. I swear it.

***

The next day was the same as the first. Kept to her chamber for the day, brought food to break her fast and to lunch, watching the sea rolling itself into grey, slate-blue, and grey again. Maybe this _was_ a worse prison than the last, though at least no one was beating her yet.

Over supper, Stannis cleared his throat. Sansa looked up. She’d learnt that he did this when he wanted everyone to attend him.

‘I’ve someone who wants to meet you after you’ve eaten.’ He was looking at the table but she knew he was addressing her. 

‘Of course, your Grace,’ she said, wondering who on earth it could be.

After they had finished their meal – in silence again, apart from a strange, nervous laugh from Lady Selyse, seemingly for no reason at all – Sansa followed a maid down a gloomy staircase. For a moment she hoped that it might lead to the cells, but it hardly seemed likely. The maid stopped at a large wooden door, bobbed a curtsey, and dashed back up the stairs. Sansa turned to the guard who had followed them down. He nodded coldly at the door. She took a deep breath, and knocked.


	11. Chapter 11

Light, scurrying footsteps neared and the door opened a crack. A little girl, half her size almost, peeked out. 

‘Lady Sansa!’ she said brightly, and opened the door wider. Part of her face seemed to be in shadow. She stood up very straight and looked solemnly at her. ‘Please come in.’ She frowned at the guard. ‘ _You’re_ not allowed.’

The girl was perhaps eight years old, with a dark curtain of hair. She sat down on her bed and patted it, looking up at Sansa with keen, raisin-coloured eyes, and Sansa could see more of her face. It wasn’t in shadow. The skin was scaly and rough, like the underside of old leather, and cracked in places. Dark patches covered most of one cheek, her nose and her forehead. 

Sansa sat down. The room was windowless, and so dark. There were soft hangings on the wall, and drawings, perhaps by the girl, of dragons and castles, and a large pile of books, and some small wooden toys on the floor. A wild, deep-purple rose drooped its neck over the lip of a glass.

‘You are Lady Sansa of House Stark,’ announced the girl. Sansa nodded gently, feeling almost shy. ‘You father is Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell and your mother is Lady Catelyn of House Tully.’

‘Was,’ said Sansa softly.

The girl looked puzzled for a moment, and then her face cleared. ‘Oh. Yes. Your father _was_ Lord Eddard Stark.’ She slipped a hand underneath one of Sansa’s, which rested on her lap. ‘How many brothers and sisters do you have?’

Sansa’s heart felt like a distant, tolling bell. ‘Five.’

‘What are their names?’

‘Robb –‘ grinning with his face newly shaven before Kings Robert’s arrival at Winterfell – ‘Arya –‘ doing curious little dancing steps in their King’s Landing solar, her left hand outstretched – ‘Bran –‘ jumping down from a wall, Mother scolding him – ‘Rickon –‘ burrowing his face into Shaggydog, his wild locks merging with his wolf’s. ‘And Jon.’ Jon, broodingly packing all his black clothes.

‘I don’t have any brothers and sisters,’ the girl said sadly.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Sansa. ‘But – who is your father and mother?’

The girl told her.

***

My brain’s going to soup. No food, half a cup of water slung through the bars in the morning – lucky if I catch it, a few steps closer to dying if I don’t.

And the singing, and the light. There are spirits in here. Ghosts of dead men, ghosts of girls. Can’t tell if it’s coming from down the hallway or through the damned walls.

I try to imagine Sansa singing to me, her voice like a water-fountain. Fat fucking chance. She’s forgotten all about me.

***

Sansa sat on Shireen’s bed again the next night, a picture book on her lap, Shireen pointing to dragons and slayers and kings. Her company lifted her heart, just a little, though she couldn’t understand how she could be so full of sunshine when she lived in this dark place.

Sansa found Shireen eyeing her curiously. 

‘You’re not scared when you look at me.’

‘Why would I be?’

Shireen shrugged. ‘Everyone is, when they first see me anyway. Some of them always are. The guards are. And the maids. Ser Davos isn’t, though. He’s very kind to me. He’s the Onion Knight. He doesn’t really have a House. I’m teaching him to read.’

Sansa smiled at her. ‘You’re very clever, to do that.’

Shireen nodded and turned the page of her book. They looked at some of the pictures. ‘Even Father does, sometimes.’

‘Does what?’ said Sansa.

‘Looks scared.’

Sansa put her hand on Shireen’s head, and turned another page. ‘Tell me about this one.’

***

Mouth’s as dry as the Red Waste. Hurts to close it, now. Gods, someone kill me.

There’s light on the walls again, and this time it comes closer, spreading a dull glow. Fucking gods deliver me. My skin curls a little off my bones. It’s still coming closer, and the singing starts again. Humming, strange tunes from the bottom of the sea. I shrink to the corner, in amongst the shit and piss.

 _Hello_ says a little voice and my heart fucking stops. I look through my hair. A tiny girl, holding a light, a girl who looks like a crone. _Bugger off_ , I scream.

A scamper of feet, and the light disappears.

***

‘I know a secret.’ 

Sansa and Shireen were walking in Aegon’s Garden – guards following them of course, as if Sansa was going to make a dash for the cliff and _swim_ back to King’s Landing. It was a relief to breathe in the air and remind herself that world still existed out here. She had been beginning to doubt it, looking at those stifling green curtains for hours and hours. It wasn’t the most pleasant garden she’d ever been in – the wind screamed through the impossibly tall pines, making them creak like old doors – but Shireen had shown her the cranberry patch in the bogs, and they’d picked some wild roses for both of their chambers.

Sansa had dropped her voice so that it got lost in the wind. ‘What’s that?’

Shireen was holding Sansa’s hand, and it tightened slightly. ‘I know where the prisoners live.’

They kept walking. ‘Do you?’ said Sansa, keeping her voice very calm. 

Shireen nodded, matter-of-factly. ' _And_ I can get down there.’

Sansa stopped. ‘Can you show me how?’

Shireen shook her head, firmly. ‘You’re too big. I can only get there because I’m little. I won’t always be able to, I suppose, though I don’t seem to be getting any bigger.’

Sansa led her to a bench made of gnarled pine and sat her down. ‘Have you been down there since – I’ve been here?’ 

The girl nodded. ‘There’s a man there. He’s _ginormous_.’

Sansa took Shireen’s hand in both of hers. ‘Have you – seen how he is?’ 

Shireen kicked her legs in the air. ‘He sits in the corner furthest away from me. He shouts a bit and tells me to go away, but I’m not sure if he’s really talking to me or not. He only has a little bowl of water, like you would give to a dog.’

There was a dull pain in her stomach. Sansa knelt down in front of Shireen, her knees in the mud, so that her back was to the guards, who stood a little distance away.

‘I want you to do something for me. Something very brave. Do you think you can?’

Shireen squinted into the pale, cold sun. ‘Alright.’

***

The girl-crone comes again. One moment it’s dark and I’m dreaming of meat, dense and chewy, and water, and the next she’s there, at the bars, holding her light up. I roll into the corner. _Hello_ , she says. Must be the Stranger. My stomach is clawing my way out of my throat. _Please don’t_ , I say in a voice like a child’s. _Please don’t what_? she says and I peek out again and she’s still on the other side of the bars, she hasn’t come to take me down to the furthest hell. 

_Who the hells are you_? I whisper and she says _Oh, I am Shireen, my father is King Stannis although I’m not really sure if he is a king, do you know if he is_? My mind’s trying to grind awake properly, and she says _you know, of House Baratheon, my uncle was Robert, who was definitely the king, although some only ever called him Usurper. Who are you_? she says and I say _I’m no one, girl_ and she says everyone is someone. _Not me_ , I say, feeling as hollow as an old tree. _You’re her friend_ , she says. 

_Whose_? I say and she says _Lady Sansa’s_. She’s looking at me as plainly as a septa schooling her charges. 

_She tell you that, did she_? I say slowly to my feet. _Yes_ , she says, _and she told me you were very brave and kind and strong_. The girl pulls something out of her pocket and pokes her fingers through the bars. _She said to give you this_.

I inch closer. Bread. She’s brought me bread. 

_Don’t tell anyone_ she says in the loudest whisper ever as I take it from her, and she runs away, the light shrinking.

I feel like crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to the commenters! You guys RULE x


	12. Chapter 12

The girl comes again, and brings more bread, and cold meat, which tastes better than I’d dreamt, and water. I think about asking her to get me wine – haven’t had a drink, a real drink, in days. I’m cramming it down me when she says _oh. You’re like me_. And I look up and she’s clinging to the bars, holding her torch up and staring at my face, and I see hers properly, the side of it like an old crust of bread, hardened, spread over her forehead too. Not burns – something else. 

_Were you cursed too_? she says. _Ay_ , I say, _if you like_ , thinking of my brother. 

_I shouldn’t be down here, you know_ , she says, watching me eat. _Ay, that’s as sure as hells_ , I say, _you’d best get_. But she hangs around, running a finger down a bar, and says, _I came down here to visit Ser Davos, I gave him books, but they let him out. Maybe they’ll let you out soon_ , she says, bright as sun on a plate. _Shouldn’t reckon so_ , I say.

She turns to go. _Girl_ , I say. The light swings back round. _The little bi– Lady Sansa. Is she well_? She screws her face up a little, nods and shrugs. _She seems sad_ , she says. _Everyone is sad here. But she looks happy when we wrap up the food for you_.

I chew my last shred, slowly. 

***

A few days later and Sansa was walking in the Garden again with Shireen, her fool ambling along behind them. The little girl seemed to only be allowed outside every so often - for what reason she couldn’t fathom - the rest of the time remaining in the stifling air of her chamber. However, she knew more about the castle than her father could imagine, and told Sansa, her hands curving in front of her as she talked, about the hidden corridors, the trapdoor, and the alleyways she could slip through. Sansa was now allowed to walk some parts of the castle unbidden, and found her way along corridors made more menacing by candlelight. 

Shireen had taken great delight in their secret. Sansa would hide half of the food from her morning and afternoon meal behind the heavy curtains, and steal it under her skirts on her near-daily visits to Shireen, who would gleefully wrap it in a little shawl and put her finger to her lips. She didn’t seem to be the slightest bit frightened of going down to the cells, or seeing Sandor. Sansa hoped that he was being nice to her.

Sandor. She couldn’t think of him as the Hound any more. Knowing he was chained up there in the near-dark, for her, was degrading enough. At least if she thought of him by his true name, she was giving him a scrap of dignity, whether he knew it or not.

The two of them stood at under the row of trees, tall pines as alert and aloof as a king’s guards, and looked out to sea. There was a small boat in the distance.

‘What’s out there?’

Sansa looked at Shireen, her hair whipping her cheek. ‘What do you mean?’

Shireen nodded at the dim gold of the horizon. ‘ _There_.’

‘You’ve got all your maps, I’m sure you know the answers,’ said Sansa and lifted Shireen’s hand up, uncurling her forefinger. ‘That’s the Narrow Sea, and if you go that way you get to Pentos, or further round to Braavos, and if you go that way you reach Myr. And King’s Landing of course, back that way.’

‘I know. But – what are they like?’ Shireen dropped her hand and turned to Sansa. ‘What’s King’s Landing like? Is it like here?’

Sansa looked across at the castle’s dark-set jaw. ‘It’s – a lot bigger. The walls are red brick, and the towers are very tall and round, and all the guards wear gold and red. There are a lot of traders bringing food and clothes and jewellery from all over, and lots of boats in the harbour.’

Patchface was crooning very quietly some way behind them. 

‘Is everyone happy there?’ asked Shireen.

Feasts with tables piled high with fruit and boars’ heads and wine. Bards singing loudly. Dances. Laughter and shouting and Cersei, watching her, hawk-like. Joffrey, sneering. Her father, on Baelor’s Steps. Waking up after a beating, her stomach pulsing. Being chased by the rioters in Fleabottom, and Sandor killing them all. 

‘No. It’s the same as everywhere else. The ones who are happy are only happy because they’re not thinking about those less fortunate than themselves.’

The distant boat had grown closer. It was a small one, with a thin, orange-coloured streak on its two white sails.

‘Oh,’ said Shireen. ‘ _She’s_ back.’

***

Sansa had received an invitation to lunch by Lady Seylse today for the first time, written in a quavery hand on paper scented heavily with wild roses. She was almost relieved to find Stannis was there too. The prospect of being alone with this unnerving woman, who she constantly found staring at her tremblingly at the feasting table, had not been one she was relishing. 

She cursed her, though, as she began her first course. It was one less meal she could share with Sandor today, and what if this became a regular requirement? She resolved to go without breakfast, so that he could still eat. 

Ser Davos joined them, making his apologies for being late. Sansa liked him. He seemed warm, so much warmer than everyone else in the castle, and had no airs or graces. He spoke to Sansa like she was a real person, not a hostage, or a stupid little girl. She’d spoken to him more than once to ask after Sandor, although he’d simply shaken his head and said he didn’t know. Stannis seemed to respect him, too. Occasionally she saw him in the Gardens staring out to sea, his maimed hand tucked into his other one, and she thought of his sons, and the wildfire. 

‘My king.’ The voice was bold and as rich as wine.

A woman unlike any Sansa had ever seen before came striding through the doorway. Her cloak was vermillion red, and her hair was redder than Sansa’s would ever be, as red as weirwood leaves. Her skin was the colour of bone.

‘Lady Melisandre.’ Stannis carefully mopped his lip, but didn’t stand. 

The lady stood as if she were a queen expecting them all to wait on her. Ser Davos was glaring at her, having stopped chewing his food, and she gave him a cool look. She gave a slight inclination of her head to Lady Selyse, whose hands fluttered to her neck as she made a sound of greeting behind her lips, and then her gaze fell upon Sansa. 

Sansa’s breath caught. The woman’s _eyes_ were red.

‘I trust you found whatever it was you were looking for?’ Stannis sounded perfectly disinterested.

‘I did, your Grace.’ 

Two guards entered, flanking a young man in simple grey clothes with messy black hair, as black as the castle walls, who stood awkwardly, a shoulder stooped. 

‘This is the bastard son of Robert Baratheon, your Grace.’

Sansa had heard things, terrible things, half-snatched whispers in corridors, about King Robert’s bastards – how the City Watch had raided the slums, the smithies, the marketplaces, slaughtering as many as twenty children, even babes in their mothers’ arms. The young man was squinting around the room, his jaw half-open. They didn’t kill _all_ of them, then.

There was a chilled silence before Stannis’ chair scraped on the stone slabs, a raven’s garish cry. He walked up to the young man, whose shoulders lowered further. ‘Look at me, then.’ 

The young man’s eyes came falteringly up to Stannis’ face. He looked like he was expecting to be stabbed the death at any moment.

‘So you’re one of my brother’s bastards.’

‘So she – the lady says, m’lord.’ He had a gentle voice. A commoner.

‘Your _Grace_. You are addressing your king,’ said the lady in a deep, firm tone.

‘Your Grace,’ said the young man, looking hesitatingly at Stannis. His uncle.

Stannis eyed him for a long moment, unflinchingly. ‘I can see it. Hopefully you’ve your mother’ wits.’

‘She died in childbirth, m’lo- your Grace.’

A nerve pulsed at Stannis’ temple. ‘What do they call you?’

‘Gendry, your Grace.’

‘Gendry what?’

‘Just Gendry.’ 

‘What do you imagine I do with this boy?’ Stannis kept his eyes on Gendry as he addressed the Red Lady. Sansa could see Gendry attempt to hold his gaze, as if he was trying to imagine he had anything to do with this man, but his eyes fluttered to the floor again soon enough.

‘He has noble blood, your Grace,’ said the Red Lady. ‘It is strong.’

Gendry shifted uncomfortably. 

The Red Lady looked over again. Sansa felt her voice ringing around her body, burrowing deep into her lungs. How did she do that?

‘This is Lady Sansa Stark,’ said Stannis. He sniffed. ‘She came to me unexpectedly.’

Sansa saw Gendry’s eyes widen, and he looked at her as if he knew her. Stannis continued to stare at Gendry thoughtfully, then made a clicking sound in his throat and turned abruptly to the door.

‘Take him to one of the chambers in the Sea Dragon Tower.‘ And he stalked out, Ser Davos hastily following. The Red Lady swept her red eyes over the room and Sansa felt her skin shrink a little.

Sansa finished her meal alone with Lady Selyse, the sensation of the Red Lady’s eyes burning into hers, peeling back her skull. Judging by Lady Selyse’s quiet, cat-like whimpers, she wasn’t the only one.

***

Days and nights ebb like tides. They scratch and rub together. Sometimes I can’t tell what’s the sea and what’s me, moaning. 

Dreams break up and crawl about my skull like ants, dreams of my sister and her toys falling onto her like rain, making her bleed. Dreams of a little girl biting into a lizard. Dreams of a bird in a cage going up in flames, its green feathers curling to black.

The little girl still comes, brings me food, keeps me sane, just about. Sansa. I shouldn’t have thought badly of her as I did. She’s stowing her food away to keep me alive. Shoving her lunch down her skirts. Grapes against her belly. Cheese sweating in her smallclothes. Gods. 

I think of all that whilst the girl’s rabbiting on about kings and dragons and battles again, nodding at her. She’s looking at me, frowning. _Say what now_? I say. _I don’t know House Clegane, it’s not in my books_ , she says, like she’s said it once already. _No reason why you would_ , I say, chewing my bread, picturing crumbs on Sansa’s thighs. _Well, what sigil do you have_? she says and I say _three dogs on a yellow field_. 

_I’ve never had a dog_ , she says, and I think, little do you know, you wee scrap. She’s ahead of me though and says _why do people call you the Hound_? and I see the boy’s face, his golden leer, and think, I’m not really fucking sure anymore I and say _it’s just a name I’ve always had_ and she says _I like your real name better. It sounds like Sansa’s_.

That’s what’s keeping me alive. Her name against mine, rubbing together like waves.


	13. Chapter 13

There was a knock on Sansa’s door. She was startled to find Gendry there, looking utterly uncomfortable in a clean doublet. 

‘M’lady.’

‘What do you want?’ She looked down the corridor for any guards.

‘Can I come in, m’lady?’

Sansa felt a flush of anger. Just because he was Robert’s son, he thought he could swan into her chamber? ‘Don’t you think that’s a bit improper?’

He blushed and looked at his feet. ‘I’m sorry, m’lady, I don’t know how I’m supposed to do things. It’s just – I had to see you.’

She raised an eyebrow and folded her arms.

He looked around either side of him, and dropped his voice. ‘I’ve been with your sister, m’lady. I thought I should say.’

Sansa’s heart plunged to the floor. ‘ _Ayra_?’ she whispered.

He nodded and she felt the stones wobble beneath her.

***

Sansa sat on her bed, blinking. Gendry stood stiffly by the window, his arms folded behind his back. She couldn’t quite believe it. Arya was alive. Alive, and with some men called the Brotherhood, and heading towards her mother and Robb in the west. It sounded like everything she’d imagined her sister would do, yet nothing that she could fathom. Gendry had practically made Arya sound like some sort of _knight_ , pretending to be a boy and making for the Wall, serving Lord Tywin, rescuing them from Harrenhall, navigating thick forests in the dead of night, though she was sure from the way he glanced at his feet in the middle of a sentence that he wasn’t telling her everything. 

‘Is – but is she alright?’

Gendry hesitated. His eyes were an icy shade of blue, like the pools at Winterfell when the sun shone on them. ‘She’s very brave, m’lady. Braver than near most any man I’ve ever met.’

Sansa suddenly felt desperately sad. Arya was there, travelling to her mother, and she was trapped again, the sea making a further barrier between her and her family.

‘Did she – ever speak of me?’ She looked up at Gendry, fearful of the answer.

‘Ay, m’lady, she spoke of all of her brothers and sisters.’ He could see that she needed more. He looked fiercely into the middle distance, as if trying to remember. ‘She said you all had wolves, and that yours was called Lady and – ‘ he stopped suddenly, as if he’d just recalled the rest of that story – ‘and that you liked dancing and songs and watching tourneys.’ 

Sansa’s heart sagged. That sounded like a very different girl. A very young, flighty, idiot girl. 

Gendry was still scrabbling for more. ‘- And she said you were very tall and –‘ he started blushing furiously – ‘very pretty, m’lady.’ 

‘You know you don’t have to say that after everything you say.’ 

Gendry looked at his feet again. His hair was as black as raven feathers. 

‘The lady – Melisandre,’ she said. ‘How did she know to find you?’

Gendry shrugged. ‘Dunno, m’lady. Didn’t have much choice in the matter, mind. She came with guards and they paid the Brotherhood for me, and here I am.’

‘What do you think of her?’

‘She frightens me, to be honest, m’la-. To be honest.’

Sansa sat with her hands in her lap, looking at him patiently. ‘Stannis will want me to marry you.’

Gendry swallowed. ‘I don’t think so, m’lady.’

She sighed, got up and walked to the window, opening it to feel the wind and salt on her face. Seagulls screamed. ‘Yes, he will. That’s why she’s brought you here. You’re a Baratheon, aren’t you?’

‘So they keep telling me. I don’t quite believe it myself.’ He stood next to her, facing the sea, and leant his elbows on the windowsill. ‘How can I be – the son of a king?’

Sansa thought of Joffrey, although she knew the rumours about his parentage, too. ‘Anyone can be the son of a king. It doesn’t mean anything.’ Gendry’s eyes darted across to Sansa, and dashed away again when she looked at him. ‘Stannis is short of heirs,’ she told him. ‘You’re his nephew now. He needs to strengthen the line.’

She heard him swallow again, very quietly. ‘Right.’

‘But I’m not marrying you.’

‘No. Of course, not, m’lady. I’m – just an armourer.’

‘I don’t care about that. I’m just –‘ she let her eyes trace the long line of the horizon, not quite believing that there was anything else out there apart from the end of the world, dropping off into a vast nothingness – ‘No one is going to tell me who to marry. I’m not doing it.’

‘Of course, m’lady,’ he said, rather quietly. 

They looked out to sea together for a while. 

‘I’m probably not supposed to be in here, am I?’ he said.

She smiled at him. ‘Certainly not. It is highly inappropriate for a highborn. _Or_ a lowborn. _Or_ a smithy prince or whatever it is that you are.’

‘I’ll be going then.’ He gave a very awkward bow.

She laughed. ‘That’s _terrible_.’

He grinned at her and went to the door, before turning back to her. ‘Is it true that Stannis’ daughter is half-fish?’

She pushed him out into the corridor. ‘She’s a _girl_. A very clever one. Though she’ll be very confused about where _you_ fit into everything.’

***

There’s a light, and I think, thank the gods, feels like it’s been three days since I’ve eaten, and get up towards the bars, about to say _what time do you call this, little fish_ , until I hear heavier footsteps, and shuffling, scraping along the stone. I put my back against the wall again.

A grating of metal as a cell door a little way down is opened, and a small grunt and thud. Metal again. The light fades. No water for me, then. Were it not for my two girls I’d be part-shit and piss by now, I swear it.

 _Don’t get too comfortable_ I say, and there’s a long silence and then a voice, youngish, comes back, uncertain. _Hello_? it says. 

_Who are you_? I say and there’s another long stretch before he says _I don’t know any more_. Gods, he’s only been down here for half a breath, I think, and _say what the hells does that mean_? 

The sea-damp drips, slow, on the stone. I try again. _Where have you come in from_? I say. _King’s Landing, once_ , he says. Slowly I ask him questions, just glad to have another man to talk to, however damned craven, and I get out of him his name, and his trade. He’s made armour for me, most like, maybe even his master made my helm. We talk of the city a bit, and the gambling hovels and the whorehouses, though he goes all quiet at that, green boy.

_What are you in for_? I say and he says, _I don’t bloody know. One moment I’m – and then – and she_ \- and he stops. _There’s darkness here_ , he says, and his boot thuds against the bars. 

__The stone collects the drips._ _

__***_ _

__Sansa had been utterly wrong about Gendry, and what they planned to do with him. She’d thought she would see him at dinner – after all, he was Stannis’ only nephew – but there was no sign of him, and when she asked, Stannis gave her a look like a shard of slate and she daredn’t say another word. Something seemed very amiss._ _

__All day and night, she felt the presence of the Red Lady everywhere, though she hardly ever saw her. It was as if the black castle was now imbued with dark red shadows, whispering to her._ _

__As she made her way back to her own chamber after visiting Shireen for their now nightly read together, the Red Lady came round a corner towards her. Sansa was stilled, rooted to the spot by something she could not quite understand._ _

__The Red Lady’s eyes burned into hers. ‘You have a sister.’_ _

__‘Yes.’ Sansa felt the weight of the silence where she should have said ‘my lady.’_ _

__The Red Lady’s eyes widened. ‘She had a darkness in her.’ Sansa felt drawn into her gaze, boiling pools of fire. ‘I do not think you have it so much. But perhaps a little.’ She was almost talking to herself, and Sansa felt herself drift off, surrounded by weirwoods and blood._ _

__When she blinked again, the Red Lady was disappearing the way she’d come, her cloak behind her like the tail of a dragon._ _

__***_ _

__Another night of dreaming – mer-girls beating my head with their long tails and laughing strange, clicking laughs, and men stroking beards of green fire._ _

_Time to see the king_ , I hear.

Two guards outside the bars, with torches. Looking at me. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey people, ta for the comments as always!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to put this in two halves, but, hells, here it is...

The guards get me up, telling me I smell worse than a sheepyard full of shit and I think, what, am I going to smell of fucking rosewater after being down here, you cunts? and I think of ripping their helms off and filling them with their entrails, but I keep my head, as maybe seeing the king means seeing if Sansa’s alright too.

The king. So many bloody kings, more than the fingers on one hand. And there’s that dragongirl across the sea and all. Everybody wants to be a fucking king, when all it ever gets them is a landful of trouble and people wanting to stick their spears down your throats. Tell me one king in the old books who had a full, warfree life, died happy in his bed, surrounded by all his family who have all through some miracle survived themselves and not been beheaded, hostaged, or burned at a fucking stake. It’s madness, the lot of it, and for what? Glory? What glory do you get from sitting your arse on a chair full of spikes, more spikes digging into your temples?

They drag me past the other cell, and I squint a quick look. There’s nowt but a boy in there, close up against the bars, goggling at me. He sort of nods but I don’t nod back. Not much point in making friends down here – it’s not like either of us have happy ends in store, most like. 

_Take these fucking irons off me then_ , I say to the guards, but they just dig their hands into my back and push me on. I can’t hardly stand up straight – should have walked around more, but I couldn’t take three steps before having to turn around again. My legs are like calf’s foot jelly, and there are staircases after staircases before we run smack into the bearded one, the one whose sons burned on Stannis’ ships.

He wrinkles his nose up. _Seven hells, you’re not taking him to the king like that are you_? he says. The guards shuffle their feet. He looks at me and I see just a jot of something kind in there, I think, and he says _give him a bloody bath, the king wants to question him, not put him out to pasture_.

They chuck me in a room with a window then, and the light’s like something from a childhood memory, innocent and full of breath. The chains are taken off me, first time in – what, seven? eight? – days, and the skin’s peeling, and has a gleam to it. They fucking stand at the door watching me while I undress, my hands bloody shaking, and I say _what, this your sort of thing, is it_? but after that I don’t care too much and I sink into that shallow tepid bath like it’s a hot spring pool and I close my eyes and dream of those mer-girls, and one mer-girl has eyes blue as cave-sapphires and hair down her back that shines like a spun sunset and for a moment I’ve died a happy man. 

And then they haul me up again and I’m given new clothes, my hands chained behind me again, and I’m yanked over to the main keep and in front one of the men who would be king.

Stannis is standing there, arms folded behind his back. I’d swear some master sculptor had just fast-chiselled him out of rock and dumped him there. His man, the bearded one, Davos it is, is behind him, arms folded, and there’s a woman too, the like of which I’ve not seen before. She looks like she’d bloody have your cock out as soon as look at you, and dressed all in red. Eyes red, hair red, mouth red. A strange red, a red that has some darkness in it somewhere. More red than blood. I think, I wonder what you look like without that cloak on, and I swear I hear a voice in my head say _there are men who have thought that and not lived the night_ , and I look at her and her eyes are on me, making my bones scorch.

Sansa’s nowhere. Wishful thinking, there.

So he sits down and I stay standing, one of my legs giving a bit, and he and Davos start on their questions. How many ships left, how many soldiers. The state of the Keep, the escarpments. How much wildfire. Who fled the city, what families joined the Tyrells and the Lannisters. What they’re doing about the dragongirl. I answer some – I don’t care much what happens to King’s Landing now that I’m gone, but I’ve no allegiance to this man either, so I keep some back. He tries to get out of me again why I left Joffrey, and the boy’s parentage. I say _if Jaime is his father, better him than your brother. At least Lannister could piss straight_. 

Stannis sits back, his chin on his hand. _So Clegane, you’ve enjoyed my dungeons, I take it. Perhaps you’d rather be down there than up here_? I shrug and say, _no worse than sleeping off a hangover in a stable_ and he frowns and I think, fuck you, king. _I’ve not much more use for you, I think_ , he says. 

The red one – she’s been standing the whole time, her lips puckered up like she’s ready for a fat one on the mouth – steps forward, right up to me, sticks her chin up in the air, stares. _He is very strong, this one, my king_ , she says. The underside of her eyes comes up. _Tell me_ , she says, _how is it you have managed to last in the dungeon this whole time on just water_? 

I lean down to her, keep my voice low, the voice I use for the whores when I’m trying to be gentle. _I don’t die easily_ , I say. 

Her eyes go wide, more red, and then she turns, quick, to her man, whose cock I bet she gives a good rubbing to every night. _I can help you get what you want, my king_ , she says. 

I’m dragged out of the room after her, Davos whispering urgently to Stannis, and I think, this probably won’t be good.

***

Sansa was walking down the corridor after being out in the Gardens in the morning. There had still been no further sign of Gendry, and her heart was sinking fast. Somehow, she felt that it was her responsibility to keep him safe – after all, he had travelled with Arya – and somehow, she had failed him.

Ser Davos came round a corner, shaking his head. He almost walked straight into Sansa, before pulling up abruptly. ‘My apologies, m’lady. My head was somewhere else.’

He went to move on when Sansa put a hand on his arm. ‘Ser Davos – may I ask you something?’

‘Ay, m’lady, of course.’

She pulled him to one side and sat him down on a stone sill. ‘I wanted to know – what has happened to Gendry? I thought – I thought perhaps his Grace would want to use him, being his nephew, that he would be useful somehow.’

Ser Davos badly tried to conceal a sigh. ‘I would have thought so too, in truth, m’lady, but –‘ he gave a rueful, dark smile –‘there are many minds at work in this castle, and some have different opinions to mine.’

Sansa’s voice dropped. ‘You mean _her_ , don’t you? The Lady Melisandre.’

He leant in. ‘I didn’t tell you that. This is not your business, Lady Sansa. You don’t need to worry about it.’

‘I do. Gendry knew my little sister, he’s been with her, he helped her stay alive. He – I owe him a debt.’

Ser Davos looked rather sad then. ‘You’re very gracious, m’lady,’ he said, his voice reassuring. ‘The king is lucky to have you here.’ 

He got up to go, but Sansa clung onto his arm. 

‘Ser Davos – please – tell me what’s happening with Sandor Clegane? He’s done nothing wrong. Why is he still down in the cells?’ As she spoke, she caught the faintest widening of his eyes, and her breath hitched. ‘He is still down there, isn’t he?’ Ser Davos didn’t answer. ‘Please, ser, if you know something –‘ she suddenly felt a terrible fear –‘he’s saved my life, more than once, and he’s a good man, I promise you. I know he seems horrible, but he didn’t kill your sons, he hates fire, it scares him more than anything I think, truly, he only did what he was ordered to do, and he always hated it. He wanted to be better. He could be of use to Stannis, I swear it, he’s the strongest of anyone, and he can lead men –‘ 

Her eyes began to sting. She felt sure that he was being led to the execution block right now. 

Ser Davos patted her arm. ‘Alright, alright, m’lady, don’t fret yourself. I’ll –‘ he looked at her, slightly unconvinced at himself. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

***

Darkness.

There’s fucking darkness in this one, darker than anything I’ve ever seen, darker than the heart of fire, which is black, not white as people say. 

I’m strapped to a bench, chains around my waist and my ankles, my hands above my head. The room’s got candles burning, hundreds of them, and a smell like overripe summer and death. The red bitch is standing over me with a small clay bowl. I can’t see what’s in it. I talk to her, try and get a rise out her, but she’s not listening, or she just doesn’t bloody care, just watching me, a smile fire-curling at the corner of her mouth. I can see that she isn’t really interested in getting more answers out of me. I’m just her sport.

She puts her hand on me and under my shirt and her skin’s as hot as if it has been held over a stove and I say _seven hells woman, if that’s what you want you’d be better unchain at least some of me_ and she just smiles a little more and brings her fucking hand down to my breeches and I can’t help my cock rising up a bit and I think, now is not the fucking time you bastard, and I wish to the gods I’d never tried to imagine what was under her fucking cloak. 

And then she puts her fingers in the bowl and picks something out, and it’s small, black, and it bloody moves and I twist and try to wrench myself free then. She puts it on my chest, and another on my neck, and another right on my fucking cock. I can feel them, tiny teeth, sucking on me. 

And she picks up a small torch and holds it near my skin over my chest and says _you don’t like fire, do you, Clegane_? and I say _who the fuck likes fire when it’s that fucking close_? She says, absently, like she’s daydreaming about something, _it’s said that if they feel fire, leeches take more blood_ , and I say _for the gods’ sakes_ and she says _Gods? There is only one true God in this room and he is the Lord of Light_. 

_Fuck your Lord of Light_ , I say, feeling those leeches burrow in, bleeding me. _Go on, fuck him, then turn around and take him that way and all and see how high his flaming fucking sword will go_ and her smile goes then.

Davos is suddenly in the room. _Stop this madness_ , he says, and she says _what madness, pray, Ser Davos_? He says, _take those off him, for the gods’ sakes_. And he spits, _your taste for burning is – it’s unnatural. You’ve a wickedness in you, gods damn you_. She doesn’t say anything else, just holds the flame near my neck, near my burns, and I’m doing everything I can not to scream ‘til the walls collapse, and Davos curses and leaves the room.

My skin cools again, and she tugs the leeches off me, and the sting is worse than anything. Sweet gods, my cock. She walks to a bowl on a stand, and tosses a candle in with the leeches. They hiss. Her back’s to me but I hear her breath catch like it’s been torn.

 _If you mean to kill me, woman, then bloody well get on with it_ , I say. 

_I’m not trying to kill you, Clegane. That would be very dull. I just want to hurt you_ , she says, coming back to me, and my blood chills. She leans in close and I can feel her breath on me, cloves and pine oil and wine. _What is it that you can’t live without_ , she whispers slowly, a nest of vipers. I stay stiff, not trying to give anything away, my mind racing, thinking what will she take – my sword hand, my tongue, my cock? Then my cheek is cold again as she leans away and puts a hand on my chest. _Of course_ , she says simply. _It’s her_.

My mouth goes dry and I get a rage in me like a fast-burning cauldron. _You hurt her and I swear, you scarlet fucking whore, even if I’m dead I’ll come for you_ , I say, pulling at my irons again. 

She removes her hand and stands over me, smiling, watching me wrestle. _You want to look upon her again_ , she says and I think, she knows me, she can see into my fucking soul, and I think of Sansa and her amber hair and her black hair and the tiny dust of freckles on her nose and her cheek against my chest and I want my ribs to split open.

 _You fucking touch her_ , I say again and she walks away from me, to a corner and I hear a small, high clink of bottles, like raindrops. 

_I can’t hurt her_ , she says, coming back. _That would be a defiance of my king. But you –_ and she takes something out of her hand - _you will not look on her again_. And she is holding a tiny bottle, half the size of her little finger, and she holds my cheek and tips it over, and it’s as if there’s a snake in each of my eyes, burrowing its way in, tongues and hissing and scales and burning and death and everything goes black and I hear her say, _for the night is dark, and full of terrors_ , her voice like a low funeral bell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lemme know what you think!


	15. Chapter 15

Sansa spent the afternoon drumming her fingers rapidly on the windowsill, watching the sea churn, and feeling her stomach churn with it. They had brought Sandor up from the cells, of that much she was sure. Were they torturing him? She had hoped that if she behaved well, Stannis would see fit to release him, and use him somehow, but the look on Ser Davos’ face had made her realise that it might not be that simple. After a while, she went looking for Ser Davos, and knocked timidly on the door to the Chamber of the Painted Table, trying to ignore the burly guards standing at the door either side of her.

There was a chill in the room. She felt sure that she had just disturbed something – Stannis sat on his high throne overlooking the table-map, with the Red Lady standing by the window. Ser Davos looked flustered and dropped his head guiltily when he saw Sansa.

Sansa stepped carefully towards Stannis. ‘You Grace, I -‘ she glanced at the Red Lady. ‘I believe you have met with Sandor Clegane again, and I wanted to ask how he fared.’

Stannis sniffed. ‘Why you are interested in the welfare of a man such as he, I do not know, Lady Sansa. You do a disservice to your family name.’

‘No, your Grace, I do not. I promise.’ 

‘Bold words, my lady, to your king.’

‘I’m – I’m sorry, your Grace.’ Sansa could feel the Red Lady’s eyes on her.

‘Clegane is not your concern anymore.’

Sansa’s heart plunged. ‘What have you done to him?’

Ser Davos stepped forward and move to speak but Stannis interrupted him. 

‘Lady Sansa, I would counsel you to hold your tongue if you want to be treated with dignity in this household.’

Sansa didn’t care about dignity. Not anymore. ‘I want to see him. Please, your Grace, even it is just once. I know he’s done bad things, but he did help me escape, and without that you wouldn’t have me here and you couldn’t have me wed or get to my brother.’

He stared at her, chewing her cheek. 

The Red Lady, standing at his shoulder, fixed her eyes on her. ‘Let her go, my king.’

Stannis gave his black-cliff face, and turned his face to the window. ‘Very well. Ser Davos, you’ll go with her.’

Sansa left the room, hearing Ser Davos behind her, holding her head as high as she could. Her heart was beginning to sound like a war-drummer’s. _Please let him be alright_ , she thought. _Please_.

***

The long corridor through the cells gave off the worse smell Sansa had ever known – faeces and urine, rotting seaweed and salt and death. The ground was slippery under her feet, and she slid to the side more than once. How on earth had she ever let Shireen come down here? The cells, from the little she could see from the guards’ torches in front and behind her, were mostly empty. 

‘M’lady.’ She heard a gentle voice to her left. 

‘Gendry!’ She rushed to the bars. ‘What are you doing down here?’

‘I could ask the same of you, m’lady,’ he said, with little emotion. She peered past him and he realised that she was looking for someone else. The little light in his eyes dimmed. ‘He’s two up, m’lady.’

Ser Davos had moved ahead. He took a torch from one of the guards and held it in front of her. ‘Here he is, my lady.’ He hesitated. ‘I’m – I think you’ll be frightened.’

He didn’t know her very well. She would never be frightened of Sandor. Sansa took the torch. ‘Thank you, Ser Davos. Please – please will you step away?’

Ser Davos looked at her with his deep sea-green eyes. ‘Ay, if you will, my lady.’ He took several steps back. ‘Not any further than here, mind.’

Sansa’s heart was beating loudly against her ribs, her own iron bars. She curled her fingers around one of the cell bars. It was so gloomy in there. She couldn’t see anything.

‘Sandor?’ she said, her voice a shade more than a whisper.

There was no sound in return.

She said his name again, a little louder, and there was a shifting of clothes and limbs. 

‘Go away.’ His voice sounded damp, rotten. They hadn’t seen each other in perhaps nine days, and this was how he greeted her?

‘What? No – I’ve come to see you.’

There was a long, heavy silence. ‘More than I can do.’

‘What do you mean? Where are you?’

Another creaking and rustling, and Sansa began to make out his figure, seated, shuffling along towards her with the wall at his back.

Her heart was in her mouth. Something seemed very, very wrong. ‘Are you – alright?’ She knew it was a stupid question.

‘Don’t come and see me again. Just leave me here now. There’s no point.’

‘What are you talking about?’ She dropped her voice, but she knew Ser Davos would still be able to hear her. 

She could see the side of Sandor’s face now, the burnt side, very near the bars. She crouched down.

‘I can’t see you.’

‘I’m right here.’

‘I know. But I can’t see you.’

Sansa stood up and walked to Ser Davos, and took his torch from him. She knelt down, her knees immediately getting soaked. The smell from the cell made her feel faint. ‘But I’m here,’ she said again, and brought the torch up.

Sandor was facing her. He looked pale underneath the dirt, or worse, caked on his face. His hair hung in dank, separated locks. The shirt he wore was filthy, and clung to his shoulders. His eyes – her breath caught. 

His eyes were – not his eyes. They were grey, but not the grey she knew. Fogged, dark as thunderclouds, and unseeing. She was looking right at him and she knew he couldn’t see her.

Sansa turned to Ser Davos. ‘What did they do to him? What did she do?’

Ser Davos sighed. ‘She has her own ways, my lady, I can’t explain them.’ And then he said the thing that she knew in her heart already. ‘She blinded him.’

She felt something like a large bell swing into her chest. Sandor said something, so quiet and low it got lost amidst the sound of the crashing sea outside the walls. 

Sansa put her ear to the bars and spoke very softly. ‘What?’

‘Forget me,’ said Sandor. He put a hand out and wrapped his fingers around a horizontal bar. ‘I’m no use to you now.’

Sansa let out a tiny whimper and put her fingers over his knuckles. It was his injured hand. The scars had deepened, four dark patches, rough under her palm. She felt a shudder run through him. 

‘No.’ She stood up.

***

Others take me now. The red one’s taken everything else. Back in this eighth hell, left to rot in my own shit, everything blacker than black. Nothing but my own skull, my own stinking thoughts to look at.

Last thing I saw was her, all red, eyes wide and alight with fire and darkness.

The wrong red. 

And they let Sansa come down here. Just to make it worse, just to make me really feel it. She came, and I could hear her talking to someone before she was in front of the bars, her voice light as spring. And she saw and she understood - I knew her eyes were on me. She sounded stronger than I’d ever heard her. She put her hand on mine, a cool, smooth river-rock.

And now she’s gone. And there’s nothing to kill myself with here, no ropes, sharp stones, nothing. Wonder if my shirt will do as a noose somehow.

***

 _Forget me_.

Sansa lay awake, the moonlight filtering through the window, throwing a cool bar across the bed and her cheek.

 _Forget me_.

The Red Lady had taken his sight. His _sight_. Without being able to see, he couldn’t move, fight, defend himself. She wanted to find the woman’s chambers, wrap her hands around her neck, snuff the life from her. But she knew that she could never kill her, not before she was slain first. There was a deep, Shadowland strength there, something untouchable.

 _Forget me_.

Her throat had thickened, seeing Sandor crouched there, seemingly without hope. When they’d begun their escape, his eyes had been wild, blazing and bright with the prospect of danger. In the cell he’d sounded derelict, a husk of himself, with nothing of the fierceness she knew.

Their escape. It was supposed to be the beginning of something, and she’d been terrified, but excited too, with King’s Landing peeling away from her, and the vast sea stretching ahead. This black place, with its damp walls and dark souls, had clutched at them all. She could feel it pressing down on her, heavy hands on her forehead.

 _Forget me_.

There had been a blind man at Winterfell, Gervas, one of her father’s old spear-makers, who he’d kept at the castle even once he’d lost his sight. He had looked like he was constantly crying milk, and Arya and Bran would play tricks on him, seeing how close they could get to him without him noticing. He would poke his stick in the air and wheel around, befuddled. Sansa tried to imagine Sandor leaning on a stick, children tiptoeing up, and closed her eyes slowly.

 _Go to sleep_ , he’d said, on the ship, his arm on her waist.

She wouldn’t forget him. She refused to.

He had saved her. Now it was her turn to save him.


	16. Chapter 16

Sansa sat on Shireen’s bed, biting her nails and watching Patchface turn cartwheels and stand on one hand.

Shireen looked over. ‘You’re not laughing.’

Sansa folded her hands in her lap. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t want to laugh today.’

‘Why not?’

She eyed Patchface. ‘I’m thinking about something very important.’

Shireen’s face lit up. ‘What? Can you tell me?’ She saw Sansa’s gaze on her fool. ‘Patches, go away for now. Go and fetch some oranges from the kitchens for us all.’

Patchface put his hands together and bowed, his nose touching his knees, and then continued bending and did a forward roll onto the floor, standing up with a flourish.

‘Oranges for two, oranges for you, oranges for three, oranges for me.’ He danced out of the dark chamber, still singing.

Shireen closed the door and stood in front of Sansa, picking up her hand. ‘Is it about Sandor? Does he need extra food? I bet I can get Patches to steal some from the kitchen. Everyone thinks he’s got mushrooms for brains but he can move really fast, like a cat after a mouse.’ She made a swooshing noise.

Sansa took a sharp breath in. ‘It _is_ about Sandor.’ She looked at the girl, her eager face and bright eyes. ‘Are you happy here, Shireen?’

Shireen looked confused. ‘Oh.’ She looked around at her drawings on the walls. ‘I don’t know. How do you know?’

‘You know,’ said Sansa quietly. She swallowed. ‘I think you’re a very brave little girl who could do anything, and –‘ she knew she was risking a lot to even speak this way – ‘I think you should see more of the world than this gloomy castle, and meet people who are friendly and kind, and be outside in the open air, and learn to ride and dance and –‘ 

Shireen was looking faintly puzzled, as if she didn’t quite understand a story that was being read to her. She absent-mindedly stroked a scaly patch of skin on her face.

‘I’m going away,’ said Sansa. ‘Do you want to come with me on an adventure?’

Shireen’s hand froze. Her eyes widened.

*** 

‘My lady, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I went to try and talk to the king, and by the time we got back to them it was too late.’ Ser Davos stood at the doorway of his chamber, looking at Sansa with a long, haggard face.

‘May I speak with you?’ she said again, looking resolutely past him into his room.

He looked at her, puzzled. ‘It’s not proper, I don’t think, m’lady.’

‘Never mind that.’ She pushed past him into his room and sat on a chair, her back very straight.

Ser Davos looked both ways down the corridor and quietly shut the door, standing hesitantly in front of her.

Sansa’s mouth felt dry. She poured herself a glass of water and drank it, very quickly, then took a deep breath and looked at him resolutely. ‘I want your help.’

He eyed her for a moment, then shook his head in a small movement. ‘I’ll help you if I can, m’lady, but I’m not sure what –‘

‘I want to leave.’

Ser Davos closed his mouth, shutting out his sigh. ‘I’m sure you do, m’lady. But you’re his Grace’s prisoner, and he means to use you to help strengthen his alliances.’

‘I know all that,’ she said, impatiently. ‘But I want to leave. And you’re going to help me escape.’

His eyebrows raised slightly. ‘And how am I to do that, if I may ask?’

‘You’re going to steal a boat. A small one.’

He looked at her with a mixture of admiration and benevolence, his voice dropping. ‘Lady Sansa, I can’t just steal a boat.’

‘Yes, you can. Shireen has told me all about you and what you did for Stannis. The Onion Knight and all that. You’re the best sailor on this island.’

‘That doesn’t mean I can steal one. And even if I did, if I helped you escape, it would be treason. Stannis would have my head, and yours too, whether you’re a lady or not.’

Sansa folded her arms. ‘Well, he can’t catch us, then.’

Ser Davos sighed. ‘I’m sorry, m’lady, it can’t be done.’

She looked at him, and at the sadness in his eyes. ‘You hate it here, too. You hate her, and what she’s done to Stannis. He’s not the man you want to serve, not while she’s in charge of him. Even I can see it, he’s her puppet.’ 

He was still shaking his head. 

‘She killed your sons,’ she said carefully. ‘It was her fault.’

Ser Davos stilled and looked out of the window.

Sansa swallowed, and took a deep breath. ‘If you don’t come with us, you’ll always regret it.’

His eyes came slowly back to hers. ‘Us?’

Sansa nodded. ‘I’m taking Shireen.’

He gasped then, and put a hand out towards her, and put it down again. ‘You’re – how would you – Lady Sansa, you’ve lost your head, now.’

‘No. I haven’t. I want to take her away from here. She’s a prisoner, shut up in that stuffy room almost all of the time, her parents are afraid of her, and she’s so bright and sunny and she’ll waste away down there and no one will ever know she’s lived.’

‘If his Grace even heard you saying this, even thinking it –‘ His voice was low and urgent.

‘I _will_ do it.’ Sansa held her head up defiantly. ‘If you don’t help me, I’ll find someone else who will. I have jewels. I’ll bribe them. We’ll sail away and you’ll never know whether she was alright or not.’ He was shaking his head again, over and over. ‘She talks about you all the time. She loves you and I know you care for her. Please, Ser Davos.’

He put a hand in his rough, short hair, and paced, and then walked over to Sansa and took her arm. ‘You should leave, m’lady. These walls have ears.’

Sansa turned back to him at the doorway. ‘You haven’t told me your decision.’

‘Go now.’ And he shut the door.

***

Darkness. Layers and layers of it, like cloaks. And it has grains and sand and gravel in it. Hurts to blink.

The boy down the way tries to talk to me. Asks me how I know Sansa. He knows her name, and doesn’t call her lady either. I don’t talk back, and his words swell and fatten and press into the walls.

The little one comes, and gives a bit of bread to him and all. I tell her I don’t want it, and she leaves it on the floor, just inside the bars. I shuffle up and find it with my fingers.

I can hear my blood, throbbing. 

***

Sansa walked slowly down the corridor. She was maddened by Ser Davos’s hesitancy last night. She had known it was ridiculously risky, but he’d said nothing. She had half-expected him to haul her by the arm to the Chamber of the Painted Table and out her for treason, but to at least do _something_. She had to move quickly, before Sandor starved down there, or before he did something terrible to himself.

Voices. The low, cool tones of Stannis and the confident voice of the Red Lady, and Ser Davos’ mixed in with them. Sansa slowed down outside a room she didn’t know. She heard shreds - ‘is the one true faith’ – ‘then burn me with the rest –‘ ‘it is for the king to –‘ before one voice became louder and the door flew open. Ser Davos stormed out and almost into her. He grabbed onto her elbows and stared at her wildly.

His eyes - the dark-green colour of the seaweed that collected in the bays at King’s Landing - changed as he looked at her. He nodded once at her, very definitely, and stalked away.

***

It was time. Ser Davos had put a note under her door, and the maid had almost read it. ‘Two days. If the moon is up.’ Sansa had burnt it immediately, and made sure that she had found him on his own, and together they had made their plans. Her heart kept thumping against her ribcage, so loud she was sure it would burst out and give them all away. She felt it pounding as she sat at her meals with Stannis and Lady Selyse. 

It pounded as she lay on her bed waiting for the hours to pass. 

It pounded when she visited Shireen and carefully helped her choose which dresses she would pack, trying to pretend it was a great adventure with no danger whatsoever. 

It pounded when she once passed the Red Lady, whose eyes seemed to bore holes in her breastplate. She had held her breath and flung her eyes to the wall as she had passed, praying that they wouldn’t give her away, trying to think of nothing at all. After Melisandre had turned the corner, Sansa had wilted into the wall, feeling faint, before making herself stand straight and tall. She was a wolf, not a sunflower in the evening. A _wolf_. 

***

There’s another sound I had never noticed, before. As well as my blood. A high whine, like a dog would make if wolves were nearby. Now I’ve noticed it, it’s always there, a keening sound that sets my teeth on edge. 

I’m lying in the drier corner. Feeling weak now. I haven’t eaten all the food she’s left me. There’s no point. Not now. I just can’t stand the waiting. The waiting to die. This is no way for a -

Footsteps, too heavy to be the girl’s. And more than one. More guards, more kings, more torture, probably. They come up to me. I don’t lift my head.

 _Hello_. That voice, sweet as almond-honey. I’m dreaming again. Must be. _Little bird_? I say, careful. 

_Come on_ , she says, her voice very soft, and I hear a hitch of metal against metal, a little click, and the scrape of the cell door.

I am dreaming. Maybe this is dying, a slow blur between life and the next thing, not the slam of a door but a bleeding, gradual shift, where you can’t tell which is one and which is the other, you just slowfall into it. Good to hear her though, if this is how it’s going to be.

 _Sandor_ , she says again, her voice lower, an edge to it. _Gods man, come on_ , says another. Davos. _We need to go_ , he says. 

I don’t know what they mean. Going where? No place for me to go now but down, down into the sea, down into one of those damned fucking hells. There’s a hand on my shoulder. _Leave me be_ , I say, shrugging her off. 

_I don’t think so_ , she says. _I’m worse than useless to you now, leave me to rot here_ , I say. And then I feel her, close to my ear, and a whisper like a damned summer breeze. _Quiet now_ , she says. _Follow me, and try not to sound like a bloody Hound_.


	17. Chapter 17

They were all on board. It was the heart of night, and the wind was high, and in the right direction. The sail was already up and ready, and two boys waited for them on deck. Her blood was humming in her ears.

There had been no more words as they crept through the cells, and up the steps, over the bridge, where Sansa’s heart had lunged, thinking of the precipice below, even if she couldn’t really see it. Ser Davos and his helpmate, a short, round-bellied man, had already killed three guards. They had stepped over them as if they were laundry bundles.

Ser Davos put a hand on her shoulder and spoke under his breath. ‘So, my lady. Where we are going?’

Sansa faced the black sea. They couldn’t go to Pentos. People knew that they had been heading that way – the captain and crew of the Sunfish and well as Dragonstone. And she couldn’t imagine going back to Westeros, not yet. There were too many dangers, and too many people who knew them. She needed to find somewhere that they could safely rest and hide. She looked back at Sandor, who was clutching onto the rail, swaying unsteadily, his ear on the good side of his face turned upwards slightly. She suddenly remembered Maester Luwin, gazing into his telescope, showing Bran the stars, and what he’d called the instrument. _Far-eyes_. And she remembered where they were made. It seemed as fine a thought as any. A good omen.

She called back to Ser Davos, a strand of hair whipping across her cheek. ‘Take us to Myr.’

***

The boat slid away from the harbour. The stars were out, a million of them, sprinkled up there like breadcrumbs. They were on a single-masted crumster, a support fishing vessel, and the galley smelt of salt and fish. Sansa stood on deck, wrapped in a shawl, watching the dark jaw of the castle bleed into the darkness. She held tightly onto Shireen’s hand, and wondered if she’d done the right thing. Shireen had said nothing since she’d come to collect her, helping her pack some clothes and her toys, apart from whispering to ask whether Patchface could come. 

Sandor was seated on a bench in the middle of the deck, and Gendry next to him. Neither of them spoke either.

Ser Davos had not been happy when she’d told him that they were going to be taking two more with them on their escape, and prisoners too, though he said he could see the point in taking Gendry, another man, to help them. _But Clegane_ , he had said. He had told her as gently as he could that he was lost to them now, and she’d refused to listen, glared at him until he had relented, shaking his head all the while.

He’d recruited three crew members too, two boys from the harbour and the older man, Mendrel, who’d helped him with the guards, all of whom he’d paid to accompany them. One of the boys was Gendry’s age she supposed, and the other, his brother, younger. They didn’t look like seafarers, but Ser Davos seemed to have faith in them. Their father had died at the Battle of Blackwater and they’d been loitering around looking for work ever since. Mendrel, who seemed to know the ship, had more gaps in his mouth than teeth, and was the colour of walnuts.

There was a commotion behind her. It was very dark, and all she could see was Sandor’s great frame, standing up now, and the sound of wood, splintering. 

Shireen’s grip tightened around Sansa’s fingers. Sansa bent down to her. ‘It’s alright. I promise. Come and sit with Gendry. He knows my little sister. He’ll tell you all about her.’ She led her over and Gendry quietly took her to the other side of the small deck.

Sansa walked quickly to Sandor’s side, stumbling slightly as the boat rocked. He was hammering at the rail behind his bench. ‘Stop it, please, you’re scaring Shireen.’

Sandor stilled and leant both hands on the rail, leaning his head down to it, breathing heavily. ‘She did the one thing,’ he was saying very quietly, over and over to himself.

Sansa leant towards him. ‘What? What are you saying?’

He raised his head and turned it towards her. It was too dark to see his eyes. ‘The one thing.’ He put his hand in the air between them, and then back on the rail.

‘What are you talking about?’ Sansa whispered.

His voice was grainy, and broken. ‘She fucking – she _knew_ me. She knew more than I –‘ and he tried to break the handrail again.

***

Complete fucking madness. I don’t now how she’s done it, but somehow we’re on a boat, and Davos is steering it, and she nicked the boy in the other cell and all, like she’d suddenly got a taste for thieving and wanted to grab everyone. I’m surprised she hasn’t got half the kitchenmaids and the guards stowed away down in the galley and all. She’s half-inched the little girl too, which is a mistake. Stannis might have thought about sending ships after her, but he might not have. He’ll sure as all seven hells do it for his daughter. 

She should have left me. I’ve no eyes. Leaving the cells, I have to hold onto Davos and the boy like they’re wooden crutches, and they both stagger under me, up the steps. I’m expecting any second to be stabbed in the gut by a guard or for her to fucking rape me with her firesword, but it’s dead quiet.

And now I’m on a deck again, swaying like I’m drunk, my whole head in darkness. It’s a whole other feeling, being blind out here, so much roaring space around me. Back in the cell there was only so much I’d have been able to see, and that was bad enough. I know it’s night, but there’s all - that, out there, and people, some I don’t know, and I can’t fucking see any of them. I’m not in charge, can’t even take an order. I’m still a prisoner. In here.

I’ve a bedchamber on my own. Smells like bloody krakens and fish-rot. The boy tries to help me down, but I shake him off. Who the hells is he, anyway, that she should bring him along? I fumble with my hands, like a stupid old man, hoping no one can see me. Gods, I need wine.

***

Sansa awoke, feeling horrible. She had slept for a few hours. Her stomach churned through a mixture of nerves and sickness. The fish-smell didn’t help. She hoped she would be able to keep it in this time. She didn’t want to disturb Shireen, who was still sleeping peacefully.

Carefully, she arose, and Shireen shifted, making a tiny muffled whimper in her dreams. Sansa wrapped her shawl around her and walked up the steps into a pale grey dawn. 

Both Ser Davos and Mendrel stood at the wheel, though Ser Davos had said he’d snatched a few hours’ sleep. 

‘Are we safe?’ she asked.

He squinted past her towards the stern of the ship. ‘So far, m’lady. We’ve made headway overnight. Hopefully no one discovered those guards til the morn, so we’ve most of a night’s worth ahead of them.’

Sansa gulped. ‘What do you think Stannis will do?’

He looked thoughtful. ‘I’ve never seen him angry, not truly. Even when I returned from Blackwater, and pulled a knife on Lady Melisandre. I don’t know. He’ll send ships, in every direction he can, though he’s got little fleet left. I don’t know how many he’ll keep back in case of battle. And it’s most like he thinks we’re off to Pentos, so we might be lucky a while longer yet.’

Sansa felt relief, for just a moment, before her stomach washed up against her ribs.

Ser Davos caught her by the elbow. ‘You’d best lie back down, m’lady. Ride it out.’

***

I hear footsteps on deck, clattering around. Day again. To not know just by looking makes me smash my fist into the wall, the same fist I hit Sansa with. I feel for blood. Not yet. I smash it again, once, twice, and there’s a knock on the door. 

_You alright, ser_? asks the boy. _You can fuck right off with your sers_ , I say, _and leave me bloody be_. There’s a silence and I know he’s still there. _What_? I say. _Ser Davos wanted to know if you wanted water to bathe with. I’ve used some. I mean, after the cells, it was good to clean up a bit_ , he says. I think, gods, I probably smell worse than the bloody fish guts that the walls must be painted in, and say, heavy, _ay, go on then_.

He brings a barrel of water back down, slopping, riverwater but old, smelling of moss and feet, and I can feel him hovering. _Do you – do you need any help, ser_? he says. _Call me ser again and you’ll be the one needing bloody help_ , I say, and I hear the door close quietly. _Boy_ , I shout. It opens again. _Find me some wine_ , I say. It shuts again.

It’s hard though, my hands scrabbling for the bowl and my clothes. Can’t see where I’m dirty, so I just guess. Probably making a mess of the floor but I can’t seee that either so who cares. The boy comes back in with wine, and I near-snatch it off him and drink the lot in one. _There’d better be more where that came from_ , I say to him, and he sighs and takes the skin away.

Wine. That’s the only thing for now.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Season 4 Episode 1, people! In honour of the last sequence, I'm getting this one up early...

Sansa couldn’t eat a thing. She sipped water slowly on deck, as Shireen sat next to her, her legs crossed, asking her a thousand questions, the sun now up on their first day on the sea. Where were they going? What sort of ship was it? How old were Kelvin and Averey and why didn’t they have a mother and father? Where did Mendrel’s other teeth go? Would she be able to see horses where they going? And parrots? And dragonfish? When would she see her father again?

Sansa swallowed carefully at the last one and smiled gently at Shireen, who was suddenly looking at her more seriously. ‘I don’t know, Shireen. Do you miss him?’

Shireen shook her head. ‘Oh no, not yet. Sometimes I wouldn’t see him for weeks and weeks.’ Her eyes suddenly brightened. ‘There he is!’

Sandor was making his way slowly up the steps to the deck, dressed in a shirt and breeches one of the boys had found for him. His hair straggled down over his face, but she could still see the clouded, directionless eyes, and a sadness swept over her.

Shireen ran up to him. ‘You’re very tall. Even taller than I thought.’

Sandor had frozen at her first word, and now came carefully up the steps, both hands snaking up the rail. ‘You’re just really bloody small.’

‘Don’t be mean.’ said Sansa, joining Shireen. 

She wanted to ask if she could help him, but his face was set and she didn’t dare. The truth was that she wasn’t sure what he thought about their escape. She’d wanted him to be proud of her, of getting them all out of there all on her own, to sweep her up and thank her, but it had seemed less and less likely as the hours had passed. He looked and sounded more surly than ever, and she could swear that he smelt as he had done so often at Kings Landing: of _wine_.

***

‘Why is he here?’ 

It was later that afternoon. Sansa looked across the deck, where Ser Davos was schooling Gendry in the ways of mainsailing, and then back at Sandor, who sat next to her on the central bench. He had both hands placed flat on the wood, as if bracing himself against a tidal wave. ‘Do you think I should have walked past his cell as I helped you out? Left him there to die whilst we escaped?’

‘What difference does it make to you?’

‘He was with my sister. With _Arya_. Of course it makes a difference.’

Sandor shook his head, irritably. ‘Too many people to hide away, to disguise. They’ll come after us. After you. You’d have been safe at least.’

‘If by safe you mean married to someone I don’t know in order to bring Stannis a step closer to the Iron Throne, then yes, I’d have been absolutely safe.’

Sandor folded his arms. ‘You know what I mean.’

The mainsail slapped in the wind overhead. ‘I don’t want to be married. Not to anyone.’

‘Not even him?’ He jerked his head in the direction of the men’s voices.

Sansa bit her lip in a grin. ‘That’s what I thought they were going to do. Marry us because he was a Baratheon. But I don’t think Stannis takes kindly to –‘ she stopped, thinking of how much Jon always hated the word she had been about to say – ‘illegitimate children.’

‘He’s going to get ideas, though, isn’t he? About being half-royal. Just you wait. He’ll be a jumped-up little cunt soon enough.’

She tried not to flinch at his coarseness. He was so infuriating. ‘Why are you being so hateful towards him?’

Sandor kicked his heel into the wood behind him. ‘I don’t need my fucking eyes to know that he’s after you.’

Sansa tried not to laugh. ‘ _After_ me?’

‘Aye. Every time he talks to you he’s imagining his tongue halfway up your fucking skirts.’

Gendry had been nothing but soft-spoken and kind all day, even if he said ‘m’lady’ a little too often. He had charmed Shireen and would hold her hand if she went to close to the edge of the deck, and was earnestly trying to learn what he could about sailing, even though he looked green to the gills. He, at least, was grateful to have been set free. 

‘Please don’t talk that way,’ she said.

‘What way? This is my way. This is me.’ He leant towards her, and she could feel the anger steaming off him. ‘Get used to it.’

He didn’t scare her any more. Not one bit. Sansa carefully put a hand on his shoulder and he stiffened underneath it. She leant down to his ear, still watching Shireen. ‘You don’t have to worry, you know.’ Sandor didn’t say anything. She dared to put her lips so close they practically grazed his earlobe. ‘I don’t like him like that.’ She resisted the urge to blow on his ear. He’d probably swat her away like a fly. Or perhaps not. She understood now. 

He was _jealous_.

***

Night. I’m in my cabin and my head keeps knocking on the wall. Fucking waves. I could move it but I want to feel the dull thud, again and again, blunting my brain. I can’t fucking stand this. I’ll never see the damn sea again, or the land, wherever the hells we end if we don’t get run down first, or her. Might as well try and blot it all out, let my mind turn to stewed cabbage.

There’s a knock that isn’t my skull on the wood. My fingers start to go for my dagger, but it can only be one of seven people and they’re probably not trying to kill me. _Ay_ I say and the door creaks. Soft footsteps that stop a couple of paces away. _Are you awake_? she says and I say _I said ay didn’t I_? 

_I wish you’d stop that_ , she says and I say _what_? The corner of the bed by my feet sags down. _That_ , she says. _It’s just me_. And then the blanket by me is lifted and somehow, she’s there, beside me.

There’s a gap between us but I can feel the heat seeping from her. _Hells, you shouldn’t – be here_ , I say, more slowly, thinking stay, stay, stay. She doesn’t say anything at all. There’s a little puff of warmth from her breath on my cheek. She’s on her side, facing me, then. _You know you shouldn’t_ , I try again, _it’s not – there’s no point_. Sansa still doesn’t say a damned word, and I want to bloody grab her, shake her, frighten her into seeing sense, I’m beneath her in every way and next to useless, a lame dog, and I break and whisper _I can’t fucking see you, Sansa_. And she breathes, very calm, and says under her breath, _look a different way then_.

Her fingers come round my hand, her thumb in my palm, and she brings it up until I can feel her breath right on it, and she uncurls my fingers and I’m touching her skin, the soft skin of her cheek, like the skin of a mole or a doe’s rump, the tiny hairs under the pad of my finger. I run it along her cheekbone to her ear and she turns her face a little. Gods. _Why are you - letting me_ I say and she says _you make me feel safe_ and I pull my hand away then. _Then you’ve your head in the damned skies_ , I say. _I can’t keep you safe any more than your half-Baratheon can or that damned little girl you’ve stolen_. I hear a tiny, angry sigh then, and she moves and the bedsheets are cold again. 

I let my head bang against the wall.

***

 

Sansa lay with her arms wrapped around Shireen, who squeaked a little in her sleep as the boat rolled. Still, her charge was doing better than she was. Her stomach was beginning to churn again. 

She felt a fool. All she had wanted to do was show Sandor – oh, she didn’t know either. After their time apart, simply hoping that he was still alive, all she wanted to do was be near him again.

And she understood what he had meant before, when he’d almost broken down. That the Red Lady had taken away his eyes so that he couldn’t look on her. She _knew_ that was what he meant.

It had taken all her resolve and strength to enter his room, his _bed_. She had wanted him to put his arm around her, as he had before when she’d been frightened by the lurch of the ship, but he hadn’t moved. And she had brought his hand up to her face and his fingers had touched her so lightly that it seemed he hardly dared. It had made her feel alive. 

Oh Gods. Her belly swam and rose up. She staggered out of bed to find a bucket.

***

I’m dreaming of the woods, dark and green and ivy coiling up around the trees like a whore’s arms looking for your coin purse. And there’s a wolf there and she’s got a voice, a small girl’s voice and she’s saying _Sandor why don’t you get up_ and I wake and the little ‘un’s there, talking to me. _Get_ , I say, in my best growl, and I hear feet pattering, but they stop. _Please Sandor, it’s really nice_ , she says in a tiny wee voice, _the sun’s out and the sea is all glittering, like handfuls and handfuls of jewels all tumbled out_ and I say _haven’t you forgotten, you stupid girl, what the hells is fucking wrong with me_? and she runs out.

Fucking gods. Sansa was right there and I pushed her away. The one thing.

I stumble out, my hand clinging onto the rail like I’m an old man, and the waves are like cave lions roaring in my face, the salt stinging. _You’ve made it above deck then_ , shouts the smuggler at me. I ignore him and stand wobbling at the top of the steps, no idea where to go next. 

A tiny hand finds its way into mine. _The sun is still quite low, and there are three, no four clouds in the sky, and one of them looks like a dragon with one wing_ the girl says, and I’m about to retort again, or cuff her round the ear – if I could even aim right – when I realise what she’s doing and I stay quiet, and I let her tell me everything she can see.

***

Sansa lay retching into her bucket again. Nothing was left but her stomach kept up its dogged fight. 

‘M’lady?’ There was a soft knock and Gendry entered with a waterskin. ‘You should drink, m’lady.’ 

Sansa hated him to see her like this. ‘Is everyone well?’

‘Apart from you, you mean? Think so. Shireen is giving Sandor a guided tour of the deck.’ 

She felt her heart snap in two, like a tiny twig. Shireen was so brave, and curious. She was better than her. More patient. More understanding. 

Sansa had to be better, for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta for the reviewwwwssssss...  
> PS Have put a little beginning of a new story up for anyone interested!


	19. Chapter 19

‘So, King Robert was your father?’

‘It seems that way, m’lady.’

‘And King Robert was my uncle, so –‘ Shireen’s eyebrows knotted like sail-ropes. ‘That means you’re my cousin.’ Her face brightened.

Gendry glanced at Sansa, who sat on the other side of Shireen on the deck. He didn’t seem very used to the idea yet, that was certain. She smiled at him encouragingly.

‘I suppose it does, m’lady,’ he said.

‘But –‘ Shireen picked at a patch of grayscale on her hand and squinted up at him again. ‘Your mother isn’t Queen Cersei?’

Gendry and Sansa exchanged another glance. ‘She isn’t.’

‘So – who was your mother? Was she a different queen? Or a princess?’

He furrowed his brow and looked at the waves with a mild, shrugging smile. ‘Something like that.’

Sansa plucked a stray hair from Shireen’s shoulder. ‘Not everyone’s mother is a princess, Shireen.’

Shireen picked up her pen again. ‘You’re still my cousin. I haven’t met any of my other cousins. Does that mean you’re Joffrey the Usurper’s brother? Or half-brother?’

Gendry gently put a hand up to his forehead, his fingers against his eyebrows. ‘Not really sure.’

They had been blessed with a second day of fair weather. The sun made precious jewels of the wave-tips, and that morning Sansa and Shireen had stood at the side, picking out sapphires and opals, diamonds and obsidian. Sansa marvelled at Shireen’s bravery and inquisitiveness. She’d been very quiet at night in their bed, and Sansa had thought she’d heard her crying, the sounds of a little shrew, but come sun-up, she was full of excitement again. 

Shireen would stand next to Ser Davos at the steer of the ship and he’d let her hold onto the wheel and tell her that she was steering it, though in truth his other hand would be doing the work. Sansa found parchment and ink in the captain’s room and set her to drawing everything she could see – the waves, the clouds, the criss-crossing rigging. Shireen didn’t have to copy from books any longer, or imagine – she could see all these new things for herself.

Sansa was more fearful, still. Either Gendry, Kelvin or Averey were usually on watch, though she had insisted on doing some herself, scanning the sea behind them. Once or twice her heart had dived like a gull after a fish, thinking she’d seen something, dark scratches on the horizon, but both times they had been her imagination, tricks of the light and the line. There had been one or two ships far off, but Ser Davos or Mendrel had pronounced them trade cogs and nothing to worry about.

‘Sandor!’

Sansa looked up. He was standing at the top of the steps of the cabin, swaying uncertainly. Shireen had scampered up to him and taken his hand, and he was trying to let go of her, telling her he’d follow her damned voice seeing as she never shut up. Sansa watched him slowly lower himself onto the central bench around the mainsail, his head cocked, listening. She hadn’t dared visit him last night, not after he’d shunned her. 

Gendry stood up. ‘I should take over watch.’

Sansa nodded and watched him join Kelvin at the stern, a hand placed on the tall boy's shoulder. A cool breeze lifting her hair from her ears as she looked carefully over at the central bench again. For all his size – he made Shireen, who perched next to him, seem no bigger than a mouse – Sandor looked so wounded and uncertain, still. She was chattering away to him and he grunted back. 

She took a deep breath and stood up. She would not be cool to him, even if he was to her. Smoothing her skirts, she walked up to them. ‘Would you like something to eat?’

He stiffened, his head coming up. It was as if he was sniffing the air. ‘Sooner have wine.’

Sansa bit her lip. He already reeked of it – she could smell the bitter, off-fruit on his breath, even from here. But she did as she was bid. It was his comfort, however much a sorry one, and clearly more of a comfort than she was to him.

She returned from the galley with bread, fruit and a wineskin and sat down next to him, the creak of the bench making him shift uncomfortably. Gods, she’d been so stupid. He couldn’t bear her. Sansa placed the food between them on the bench, loudly, so that he could hear the apples landing, and the slosh of the skin. Sandor fumbled next to them, his fingers groping over the food until they found the wineskin. He swiftly removed the cork and drank deeply, and kept drinking. _Stop it_ , she thought.

He finally brought his mouth away from it with a loud breath and thrust it into the air between them. ‘You should have some, for the sickness.’

 _Is there any left_? ‘No, thank you. I’m a little better.’

He sniffed. ‘You’ve gone quiet,’ he said to Shireen suddenly.

Shireen didn’t look up. ‘I’m drawing.’

‘Oh ay,’ he said, taking another slurp of wine and corking it. ‘What are you drawing?’

‘You,’ she replied, deep in concentration. 

Sandor made a movement towards her, his hand outstretched. ‘Don’t.’ He almost snarled.

Shireen yelped and jumped up, whisking her paper out of his reach, the little inkpot spilling down her skirt. 

‘Sandor!’ Sansa reached out towards Shireen.

He turned to her, violently. ‘What, I’m supposed to sit here like a cunt, not knowing she’s doing that? She’s taking the piss.’

Shireen burst into tears and ran away over the deck towards Ser Davos.

‘Why do you have to be like that?’ Sansa said to him, furious. ‘She’s a little girl.’

‘She’s an idiot.’

‘She likes you. She’s drawing you because she _likes_ you. What is wrong with you?’

Sandor grabbed her arm, his fingers gripping her at the elbow. ‘What’s wrong with me?’ He leant towards her, his face twisted menacingly, his fogged eyes glaring somewhere over her shoulder. ‘Take a good look, girl, because _I_ sure as hells bloody can’t.’ 

_Girl_. He hadn’t called her that for a very long time. It stung. Before she knew what she was doing, she’d slapped him, hard, across his unburnt cheek. Sandor’s face dropped in a fleeting moment of shock before turning to fury again, his mouth curled up into a sneer. He stood up, still holding her by the arm, yanking her up with him. 

Ser Davos came dashing over. ‘What is going on?’ Sansa wrenched her arm free and clutched her elbows, tears coming. ‘M’lady, are you alright?’

‘ _She_ bloody hit _me_ , if you’d been looking,’ said Sandor in a low growl.

‘Gods, man, get a hold of yourself,’ said Ser Davos. ‘This your normal sort of thing, making ladies and little girls cry?’

‘Fuck you,’ said Sandor.

Ser Davos spoke in a measured, taut voice. ‘Control yourself or I’ll throw you over the side myself.’

‘Oh, I won’t need any help,’ said Sandor evenly. ‘Though mayhaps I’ll take you over with me when I go.’ 

He staggered away, and for one awful moment Sansa thought that he meant to head for the side of the ship. But he kept his hands outstretched and felt for the rail at the steps, and descended below decks.

***

Gods, it was easier back in King’s Landing. Simple. One task, to shadow the boy, to fight and kill when he bid, and other times when he hadn’t bid it and all. War seems a tame thing compared to trying to be fucking nice to girls, little or big. I can’t fucking help it, lashing out. I know it’s in part the wine doing the talking, but without it, I’m a dead man.

I’m best staying down here, out of sight. Let them play their happy fucking families without me.

***

Sansa had washed out Shireen’s skirts and put her in a new dress, and calmed her down. They spent the afternoon looking out at sea, making up stories together. Later, she had found Shireen’s picture, laid on their bed, the corner crumpled. Though she’d been sitting at the side of him, she had drawn Sandor as if facing him. Sansa looked closely at it, and smiled. 

***

Sansa knocked on the cabin door. The wood was splintering a little. He didn’t answer and she carefully opened it a crack. ‘May I come in?’

There was a short silence. ‘It’s your ship.’

Sansa shut the door behind her, having to bang it soundly. Sandor was sitting up on the bed, his wineskin next to him, the cork hanging loose by its string. He was wearing his boots, and the bedclothes were tangled beneath him. 

She stood two paces away from the bed. ‘I know –‘ she began very carefully – ‘this is awful for you. More than awful.’

‘You don’t know.’

Why did he have to make everything so hard? She tried again. ‘I want to help you.’

Sandor sighed, a huge, heavy thing. ‘What for? You don’t need me for anything. The smuggler’s got a sure head on his shoulders, and that boy’s waiting on your every damned word.’ He was shaking his head, over and over. The wine had loosened his tongue. ‘I can’t make you safe, not any more. What’s the point of me, if I can’t fight? Put me in that crowd of goldcloaks we met in the Keep tunnel now, and they’d cut me to pieces before I took my second breath. Slum peasants would have me. A fucking bunch of _girls_ would. There’s no point in me, not now. Fighting’s what I do.’ He thunked his head against the wall behind him. ‘ _Did_.’

‘You can still – command.’ Sansa knew it sounded idiotic.

‘No, I can’t.’

‘Or – keep your family house.’

Sandor snorted, a little of his old self returning. ‘What, Clegane Keep? You think I can dance my way back there, after leaving King’s Landing with you under my cloak? Tywin Lannister would have my head on a plate as soon as he heard I’d put one foot back on Westeros. And it’s my brother’s, any road, to do with what he will.’

Sansa realised again what a sacrifice he’d made. For her. None of this would have happened – Dragonstone, his eyes – if she hadn’t ever asked for his help. ‘And you did that for me,’ she said, glumly.

There was a pause. ‘Ay, little bird, I did that for you.’ His voice was like a thick cloud of flour, falling.

‘It’s my fault. All of it.’

He breathed through his nose. ‘You couldn’t know. No one could – dream that woman up.’ 

‘Please, Sandor.’ She took a step forward. ‘Please let me look after you.’

He leaned forward, almost threatening. ‘I don’t want your pity.’

‘It’s not pity.’

‘What in the seven hells is it, then?’

‘It’s – I don’t know. I - care about you.’ She heard him swallow, and his mouth opened a little. Sansa thought of his idle threat of hurling himself overboard. ‘I don’t want you to hurt yourself.’

His shoulders dropped then. He leant his elbow on his knee, and rested his head slowly down on his hand.

‘Please don’t kill yourself.’ Her voice cracked slightly, the sea on shingle.

There was a long silence. She wondered if she should dash away. She could hear him breathing, a little guttural rattle in the back of his throat. 

‘Truth is, little bird, I’d have brained myself on the wall of that cell if you –‘ Sandor brought his face up to her, his eyes somehere to her left. ‘This is the only thing keeping me alive, you know.’ He put his fingers up to his temple, and she could see it trembling. ‘You’re the only thing keeping me alive.’

‘Please don’t say that.’

‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘It’s true.’ He slumped down a little on the bed. 

Sansa carefully sat down next to him, her hips touching his. She put her hand out and rested her palm on his unburnt cheek. 

He gave a tiny shudder then, and went completely still. His eyes were milky. Blank. She could feel part of his cheekbone under her thumb.

‘Why would you, little bird?’

‘Why would I what?’ she said, her voice very quiet.

It was as if he hardly dared say the words. ‘Care. For me.’

She took a long, measured breath in. ‘Because you’ve always tried to keep me safe. You’ve protected me. And –‘ she gently moved a finger along his cheekbone and on the smooth part of his cheek, above his beard. ‘I just do.’

He turned his face away, making a gap between his skin and her finger. ‘You’re blind too, then.’

‘What do you mean?’

He snatched her wrist up, an awkward grasp, and pulled her a little towards him. ‘Gods, Sansa, look at me. I’m no fucking wall-hanging, am I?’

Sansa held her tongue and did as she was bid. He was a mess, the effects of the wine winding through his face, making more lines, his mouth loose. But she did see something else in him now – had done since he’d joined her on the harbourfront at King’s Landing. The strong eyebrows and fierce face, his dark hair and stature and strength. He could be handsome, of a fashion, if he didn’t scowl so much. 

She was leaning slightly over him, and wondered if she should rest her arm on his chest. ‘Shireen thinks you are.’

‘She’s got the sense of a bloody horsefly and all, then.’

Sansa smiled. ‘You know that’s not true. She drew you without your burns, you know.’

Sandor didn’t say anything. His thumb was exploring the inside of her palm. 

‘She doesn’t notice them,’ she said. He was quietly chewing the inside of his cheek. ‘And nor do I.’ 

Sansa very carefully placed her other hand flat on his chest, leant over him and kissed his forehead. His breath made a juddering sound, and he fumbled for her other hand. It made her almost fall on him. She could smell the wine on his breath. Her heart hurled itself up to her throat. She didn’t want to do it like this.

‘You’re a bit drunk,’ she said very softly, desperate not to offend him.

He let her go with a sigh. ‘I know I am. Go on, go and see to everyone else. You can’t stay down here.’

She straightened carefully, and looked down at him. ‘I’ll – I’ll come later. If – you want me to.’

There was a very long pause, and neither of them seemed to breathe.

‘Ay. Alright.’

***

Some sea-sickness has wormed into her head rather than her belly. She can’t have me. Not now. Not like this. I’m a fucking joke. A fool’s punchline. The end of each verse of some bawdy song that everyone joins in on. She’s the patience of the Mother, I know, listening to me bleat on, the wine winding through me. 

I’d never have dreamt, before, _with_ my eyes, of this. Alright, I hoped I’d have her legs wrapped round my ears in Pentos, her wearing nothing but a bead chain and smelling of cinnammon, but I never thought, truly, it would happen. And now – I can’t let her do it, do anything for me when I’m so broken. Too ashamed.

But at the same time, it’s as I told her. It’s the only thing that gives me a shred of hope.

Fuck it. Might as well live just a bit longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy GoT day to American readers!


	20. Chapter 20

Sansa stood outside Sandor’s door with the candle in her hand. She had waited until Shireen was peacefully asleep. The boat tilted gently – Mendrel was at the steer, keeping them moving slowly while the wind was still in their favour. She carefully knocked, a thickness in her throat. There was no answer. Perhaps he had changed his mind again – he lurched between anger and something much more gentle so often. She pushed the wood gently and stepped inside.

He was breathing heavily, a little drag in his throat. Still sleeping off the wine, then. This wasn’t exactly what she had dreamt of – it had always been smooth-skinned boys bending and smiling, fleet of foot and sword – but somehow, things were different now. Something had changed as soon as she’d stepped off the harbour at King’s Landing. A new frontier, and new rules.

Sansa stepped towards the bed as quietly as she could. Of course, the light wouldn’t wake him. Well, if he was blind, then she would be too. She took a last look at his frame on the bed – he was very close to the edge, on his back, his hair spread out messily, his mouth open slightly – and blew the candle out. She put a hand on his shoulder and waited for him to wake. He didn’t move. 

‘Sandor?’ she whispered.

His breathing remained slow and even. She took a deep breath and lifted the covers a little, sliding in alongside him in the tiny space at the edge. His breath suddenly caught, and he shifted just enough to let her lie on her side, right up against him. His arm slid underneath her neck and came back around her, hoisting her up slightly, and she found her chin resting on the soft flesh of his shoulder, with just his shirt between them. Sandor made a single sigh behind closed lips, and his breathing settled again. 

His warmth seeped into her. Sansa lay very still, squashed into him, and wondered what to do next. Every time he inhaled, her head was raised up slightly, and his heart pulsed against her temple, the footsteps of a giant. Had he gone back to sleep? Her arms were crushed at her chest. Maybe she should put one of them over him. 

Suddenly Sandor sniffed, tilted his head down so that his nose and mouth were at her crown, and put a hand in her hair. He still smelt of wine, and salt, and fish. She probably didn’t smell much better.

‘I thought you might be asleep,’ she said.

His fingers folded carefully through her short hair and rested just behind her ear. She stopped breathing.

‘Not likely,’ he said.

Sansa didn’t know what to say next. The lightness of his fingers almost stung. He ran his forefinger under her jaw towards her chin, as if testing it for dirt, and then his thumb was on her bottom lip. She knew it was dry and flaked. She opened her mouth and he tugged her lip down a little, the pad of his thumb on the wetter part just inside, before he let it go.

‘What will you have me do?’ he asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Just what I say. What will you have me do? To – with you.’

His hand was still on her cheek. Sansa’s mind went blank. She swallowed dryly, her throat rising to his fingers, and carefully sucked her bottom lip in. ‘I – don’t know.’

She heard him breathe carefully through his nose. ‘Well, better I know what you want, or we’ll both be in trouble.’

Did – he mean he wanted all of her, now? She definitely wasn’t ready for that, not yet. Perhaps she had given him the wrong impression. She supposed normally when a woman got into bed with him – did that happen? How often? It was best not to think about it – it was only ever going in one direction. He probably wasn’t used to green girls like her. 

‘Just –‘ she felt stupid – ‘a kiss.’

His thumb stroked her cheekbone and his other fingers gripped her carefully underneath her jaw to tilt her face up. ‘Better come here then. I might miss.’ 

‘I might miss, too,’ she said. ‘I put the candle out.’

‘Ay, probably best,’ he sniffed. ‘That way you can imagine the bloody Knight of the Flowers underneath you and not a blind old dog.’

‘No – that’s not what I meant. That’s not why I – did it. I just didn’t think it was fair.’ 

She carefully propped herself up on an elbow and put her hand out to his face to show him that she could only feel him, too. Her fingers found his burns, and she made herself stay there, and run a finger down one taut, smooth ridge. They weren’t so bad. Not really. Sandor had gone very still, and at least wasn’t making any other retort. She felt emboldened, and carefully moved her hand to his other cheek, and along his thick, coarse beard. 

He gave a big breath in then, pulled her over so that she leant on his chest, and moved his hand to the back of her skull, bringing her right over his face. She hung poised there for a moment, breathing into his mouth, before he pressed her down to him and then her lips were on his. His bottom lip gathered hers up.

Sandor was holding her firmly, his fingers spread out around her head. His mouth was very warm and there was the sour taste of wine. He kissed her several times, each more hungrily than the last, before pulling away, sharply.

‘Am I – doing it alright?’ she asked. 

‘Ay. You’re doing it alright.’ He squeezed the back of her neck. ‘Haven’t you done this before?’

‘No. Not – properly. Only with Joffrey.’

His grip relaxed but she felt his shoulders stiffen. ‘Don’t much want to think about him.’

His cold, supple lips and his lizard-green eyes. ‘Me neither.’

She put her hand on his beard, and her thumb found the corner of his mouth. He gave a low groan and grabbed her again, shifting her up so that her torso was almost entirely on top of his, his hand moving down to the middle of her back. As he kissed her again, his finger was pressing just to the side of her spine, and she felt a flood of warmth between her legs. She opened her mouth to gasp and then his tongue was there, tucked up against her top lip, and lingering. Joffrey had tried to kiss her like this, and she’d hated it. But she made herself stay there, letting him taste her, trying to allow herself to melt into him. 

‘Gods,’ he said, and loosened his grip. Sansa shimmied off him a little bit and rested her head on his chest. She could feel his heart again. The giant was running now.

His hand lazily trailed on her collarbone and down her back. She kept thinking don’t go down there, not yet, and he didn’t. Sandor simply breathed her in as if she were a summer orchard, stroking her neck, until her eyelids drooped.

***

Well, at least I could die a part-happy dog now. The bird’s lying on me, dead to the world, her heart fluttering like a canary in a cage, and she smells of the sea and of something else too, like lemons or meadowgrass or something. 

Her neck’s as long as a bloody swan’s.

I don’t ever want to sleep.

***

Sansa woke to find herself drooling on Sandor, who was snoring soundly. A little puddle of spit had pooled onto his chest in the night. She hastily wiped her mouth and started dabbing at his shirt - this was hardly the demure maiden she was supposed to be.

He swallowed dryly. ‘What are you up to?’

Sansa stopped as quickly as she’d started. ‘Nothing.’ The room was bathed in a low, sour light, which tilted with the boat. ‘It’s dawn. I should get back. I don’t want her to be scared.’

Sandor sniffed, gently moved his hand down her arm, and ran his thumb along the crease on the inside of her wrist. ‘You shouldn’t have taken the girl, you know.’

‘She has a name.’ He didn’t say anything. ‘I – I know what it’s like to be a prisoner.’

There was a silence, and Sandor took his nose out of her hair. ‘Stannis will kill you. He wouldn’t have before. You’d have had your life.’

‘The life he chose for me.’

‘Better some life than none.’ 

_Speak for yourself_ , she thought, thinking of his threats of throwing himself over the side.

‘He might have left you alone, maybe just. He might have not thought it was worth it. Might not even have cared about his bastard nephew, and definitely not about me. But –‘ He took a deep breath in through his nose.

Sansa knew there was truth in it. He wasn’t even speaking harshly, and his hand still rested on her head. But it was done now. She could hardly return her, say it had all been a terrible mistake or that Shireen had stowed away. She began to wriggle from underneath his arm, and Sandor’s grip seemed to firm. Gods, he was strong – she might as well have been clamped beneath iron bars. 

‘Sandor, I have to go.’

‘Bugger that.’ He pulled her on top of him, and she found her leg draped over his, and his mouth on hers again. She relented. He was so warm, and she was beginning to like his tongue there. His hips shifted against hers a little, and she felt him harden underneath her pelvis, and slid off him in alarm.

‘I – really – have to -’ She was glad he could not see how red her cheeks must have become. He sighed and loosened his grip, and she wrested herself free and practically jumped off the bed. 

As Sansa quietly shut the door behind her, there was the sound of another door opening. She froze as Ser Davos emerged, his face crumpled, from his cabin. His eyes widened as he took in what room she had just exited from, before looking at Sansa, at the floor, and at Sansa again in some alarm. Before he could speak, she had scuttled past him, her head bowed, to her own cabin.

***

I lie, cursing. Cursing myself that I didn’t look on her enough. All the times I’d stand at the boy’s shoulder in the throne room, sensing her in some blue or purple gown somewhere amongst them. Knowing she’d been there had been enough. All the times I walked with him, listened to him worm his slanders into her, all the while looking some way over her head, a daub of copper at the edge of my vision. Feasts. Tourneys. Gardens. All those times I’d hole up in Fleabottom when I could have been _looking_. If I’d known what was coming, I’d never have bloody stopped staring at her, drinking her in like wine, for all the good it would have done me. 

I get piecemeal flashes of her in my head – the long braid snaking round her skull, the white skin, whiter than some dead men, the way her collarbone sat under her taut flesh, like the edge of clay plate. That crazy black hair on the other boat, like a gawky damned beautiful crow, making her even paler.

I have to try and do as she said before. Let my fingers do the looking. The learning. Not what she looks like but how she feels, which is almost all soft, the skin on buttercream. The smoothness you get on brushed horses. The coolness of pebbles. 

I don’t know why she’s letting me. It’s like on leaving the Red Keep, and that land she’s had under her feet her whole life, she’s left behind all the rules, the rights, the ways of womanbeing she’s been taught. It’s madness, mind, but I’ve stopped telling her that. It’s her that’s keeping me going. Nothing else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Could I please ask for lovely commenters not to refer to spoilers past the show? I haven't read the books any further than the show yet, and would love to find out for myself stuff that happens!! However, big love to all commenters because, spoilers aside, it makes me most happy... Happy Easter y'all!


	21. Chapter 21

Ser Davos found Sansa alone on the deck later in the morning, as she chewed on some bread. It was getting stale now, and took several grinds before she could swallow any. 

He stood close to her shoulder and kept his voice low. ‘My lady, I’m sure it’s none of my business but I’ve only your safety in mind.’ Her stomach shrank to the size of a hazlenut in embarrassment. ‘Is he – are you – has he been improper towards you?’

 _I’m fairly sure he wants to be_ , she thought. She was trying to think how to respond but Ser Davos floundered on.

‘He’s – a fighter, a man of battle, and he – he can be frightening and, I mean, he’s made you cry, and you’re –‘

‘Ser Davos.’ She looked over at him. ‘It’s really alright. I promise. It’s my choice.’

‘Your choi – right.’ He cast his eyes far out to sea, as if the correct words could be trawled somewhere along the horizon. ‘Is it wise, Lady Sansa?’

‘Wise might have been letting him die, and Gendry too, and you, and giving myself to Stannis wanted me to marry, and leaving Shireen to live and die in that dark dungeon she called home.’ She smiled at him. ‘I think I stopped being wise a while ago.’

He gave a short nod, though didn’t look wholly convinced. ‘If you say that truly, and aren’t frightened, or feeling obliged –‘

She shook her head very definitely and put her hand on the crook of his arm. ‘I am very grateful to you for looking out for me, Ser Davos. Really. I couldn’t have done any of this without you.’

He gave a reluctant, genuine smile then, and sighed. ‘Very well, my lady. Just know that if he does anything – that if I can help with anything, you just have to say.’

Sansa squeezed his arm and lightly kissed the scrubby beard on his cheek.

***

Sea’s up a bit today. The boat lurches, and I have to work on sitting straight, feeling the structure of my bones against the wood, having to trust my muscles to know which way we’ll pitch. 

_I feel a bit sick_ , says the little ‘un, next to me. _Best go lay low_ , then, I say. _What are you going to do_? she says. _Stay right here_ , I say. _I will too_ , then, she says.

There’s a thump on the bench on the other side of me and I almost jump off. I put my hand out, for a moment think a bloody sea-snake’s landed on deck. Coarse rope-strands. _You could make yourself useful_ , shouts the smuggler. _I’m not your fucking cabin-boy_ , I say back. _No_ , he says, _but Kelvin’s working the sail and Averey’s sleeping, seeing as he took his turn all night while you were - abed_.

A pause before that last word, loaded with something. He knows about Sansa, or reckons he does. And doesn’t think much of it. No surprise there. Who the hells will? Maybe it’s something that will just happen on this ship, a different world on the sea, no rules. She’ll remember her ways soon enough once we’re back on land. I feel for the twine, begin to wrap it, first imagining it coiling round the smuggler’s neck, then as Sansa’s hair, round my fingers, whilst I lie on top of her.

The sea begins to heave and shout a bit, the wind, too, making the sail flap like a giant bird above me, mixing in with the little fish’s singing as she wanders the deck. Storm’s coming.

***

There was a yell above Sansa’s head on deck, and clattering footsteps. 

Ser Davos poked his head round into the galley. ‘You might need to look sharp, my lady.’

That was it, then: their good fortune over. A ship must have been sighted – one of Stannis’ ships, no doubt much bigger and faster than theirs. She put the carrots and cabbage and the knife down carefully, and went to the door. A little wooden knocking sound – she looked back to see every single vegetable roll off the table and onto the floor as the ship pitched.

When she reached the deck, she realised that the danger was not a human one. Rain was beginning to darken the sail a gloomy grey, the material billowing in a way she’d not seen before. It was the afternoon, yet there almost seemed to be a night sky. The sea had corners, edges, peaks like distant snow-covered mountains, ranges and ranges of them. Sansa felt the waves rise in her stomach, and grabbed onto a rail.

Averey stumbled past her, bleary-eyed, from his sleep, and Ser Davos shouted instructions to him and Kelvin, who struggled with ropes. Mendrel was at the steer, for once using both hands instead of one casually in his pocket as he usually did. Sandor was on the central bench, looking uncertain.

The rain began to flatten the shoulders of her dress to her skin. 

‘My lady, you’d best get him and Shireen down,’ Ser Davos said, his voice snatched up by the wind. 

She heard Sandor snarl something, and looked around for Shireen. She was at the far side of the deck, her fingers on the rails, her hair whipped into shreds. She turned round, and Sansa could see her eyes wide.

‘Look!’ Shireen shouted. ‘Look at the sea! It’s like –‘

And there was a great groan above Sansa’s head, the mast creaking, and a wave slammed into the side of the boat. Sansa lost her balance and toppled over. Her ankle twinged, and she clutched it as she looked back up to the far rail.

Nothing but the wood and the sky and the sea. Shireen was gone.

***

A noise I’ve never heard before – Sansa screaming. I’m up off the floor, feeling for the bench, the rain coming down hard now, nails round my ears.

She’s screamed the girl’s name, and I know straight away what’s happened. There’s shouting, five men’s voices at once, and Sansa’s wailing in there with it, and the wind mixing it all into a soup. I hear the smuggler shout something, and Sansa scream again, and a splash, a different sound to the waves on the hull. Fuck, he’s gone in after her. 

For a moment I can’t move, just listening, waiting. Gendry’s shouting, a boy-shout, scared. The sail, rattling like mad. Then I call her name. Her hands on me, and her jabbering. _Get me over there_ , I say. The boat’s making us slide and I almost fall, fall on her, but then my hand’s on a rail, my knee against wood. 

_I can’t pull it_ , shouts Gendry. _They’re down there, I can’t see them_. Rope in my hands. I elbow him to the side, wrap it round my waist twice, thinking any moment now I’m going to be over myself the way this fucking boat is going. Then I feel a pull, a weight on the rope, and I brace, and move backwards. Sansa’s shouting and the man at the steer too and Gendry’s in front of me, pulling a bit too, and my back curves with the heaviness. And I keep going backwards, using my arms to yank it too, feeling like the muscles are going to slide clean out from under my skin. 

And then there’s jerking on the end of the rope, and I fall on my arse, hard, and hear a tumble and gasping and Sansa crying and yammering, and I lie there, chest heaving, rain filling up my mouth, the rope around my waist, waiting.

And the little girl starts crying.

***

The storm lasted hours. All the men were up there - Sandor too – and Sansa could hear the shouts and footfalls thud above her. Shireen had thrown up half the sea, it seemed, onto the deck, and Sansa lay with her in their room as she shivered and retched and cried, the sea swilling them around, waves cracking against the hull, as if trying to break in.

She had begun to think that the lurching movement would never end, that she was destined to lie here on this damp bed, her blood sloshing about in her from her ankles all the way up to her skull, for the rest of her life, when it finally began to subside. Her brain levelled out with it. The crackle of rain ceased, too, and as Shireen’s trembling faded, she felt her eyes grow heavy at last.

A weight on the corner of the bed. Sandor was sitting there, half turned towards them both. His hair was slaked to his skin, and his skin red and soaked. He looked utterly spent.

‘Is it over?’ she whispered.

‘Ay.’ He swallowed. ‘We’ve anchored. Everyone needs to sleep.’ He ran a hand over his hair, shook out his fingers, then tilted his head towards them both. ‘She alright?’

Sansa felt Shireen shift in her arms and give a small whimper. ‘I think so. Are you?’

‘I’ve been drier.’

Sansa put a hand to her own forehead. She felt faintly hysterical. If she started laughing now, she’d never stop.

Shireen suddenly turned around. ‘Sandor?’

‘Fancied a swim, did you?’ he said.

‘No,’ she replied, her voice very small.

‘Trying to live up to your name?’ His voice was ragged, but there was a trace of amusement in there.

Sansa poked him in the ribs.

‘I’m not a fish,’ said Shireen.

‘That’s as sure as hells. Proved it good and proper, there.’

‘Stop it,’ said Sansa.

Sandor heaved a great sigh, as long as one of those storm-gusts. ‘Time for my bed.’ He put a hand on top of the covers over Sansa’s foot, squeezed it, and sat there. He wanted her to come with him. She shifted her foot back and forth and dug it into his thigh, hoping he’d understand. He sighed again, and rose, unsteadily, his fingers against the wall.

‘Thank you for rescuing me,’ said Shireen. 

Sandor stopped at the door and half-turned. ‘You’re getting me mixed up with your Onion Knight.’

‘No, I’m not. You rescued me, too.’

He stayed there for a moment, half-leaning against the wood. ‘Don’t fall in again.’ And he staggered away.

Sansa wrapped her arms tightly around Shireen. She smelt thoroughly of salt. 

‘Why isn’t he a knight?’ asked Shireen, shivering again.

Sansa brought the covers up around Shireen’s ears. ‘He just doesn’t want to be. But he is, really.’


	22. Chapter 22

Everything in me aches, worse than a swordfight on a hangover. The smuggler, half-spent after his sea-dive, set me to holding ropes, and I didn’t know what the hells was going on and just felt the boat do battle with the water and the wind as I pulled tight. Got bashed with a swinging bit of lower mast too, swore I saw stars, then. Gods, I could sleep for a winter.

My dreams are full of sea and I can see it as much as I can hear it, plain as day, streaked and all the colours from black through to green. And then it turns amber, too, like the sun’s on it, and the waves’ murmurings turn into a girl’s voice and Sansa’s there, by the bed, and I wake properly and don’t see anything again.

 _I brought you a tonic_ , she says, and sits down. A warm wooden cup in my hands. Tastes of wine and spice and something queer, too, like hay. _What is it_? I say and she says _grog. That’s what Mendrel said_. I say, _that steer’s got a good head on him_ , glugging it down.

 _So have you_ , she says. I don’t say anything. _I’m proud of you_ , she says, words that feel like little knife-nicks in my gut. _No need for that_ , I say, sitting up properly. _Nothing a bloody auroch couldn’t have done_. 

A hand on my face, like pheasant feathers. On my good side then over to the burns, where she might as well be touching the wall. _Can’t feel that_ , I say, slow. The feathers come back, onto my neck, in my beard. I feel fire in my belly, not just the grog, and take her hand, pull her like those ropes above deck. She resists, then comes, and I get her onto my lap, thighs either side of me.

 _I need to look after Shireen_ , she whispers. _She can wait_ , I say, and put my hands round her back, feel her ribs under my palms, and find her mouth. She sighs and puts both hands on my beard and mumbles into my face and I think, this is all the pride I need from you, little bird, and I slide my hands down the curve of her, to her hips, and under her arse, and she jerks a little, then sits again, right on my hands. 

Her breath’s on my ear. My cock hardens, and she starts again, and though I try and hold her, she’s wriggling off quicker than a caught fish out of a hand, and I think, bloody hells, it’s not a sword down there – well, not exactly, anyhaps.

I hear her opening and shutting her mouth, standing on the boards – another fish. She’s a girl, still. A year older than one or two whores I’ve had, mind, but I’ve not felt proud of them much. Green and scared and a bloody lady, and all. The door goes.

There’s a pause and then the boy’s stuttering, words half-formed. _Out with it, then_ , I say. _Ser Davos asks if you’d help with the anchor_ , he says. I sigh, drain the cup. That’s my job, then. Ship-auroch. _I’ll be up shortly_ , I say, thinking, once she’s out of the room and I can stop thinking about her arse-cheeks in my palm like ripe summer fruits.

***

‘Gendry, can I ask you something? Something – personal?’

He and Sansa were sitting at the starboard, watching the sea churn in trails behind them, the wind in their favour again. Ser Davos had reckoned another day and night would do it, and Myr would be in their sights. 

Gendry cast faintly puzzled eyes over to hers. ‘Ay, m’lady, I suppose.’

Sansa took a deep breath. ‘Have you – known a woman?’

Gendry’s face dropped in alarm. He opened and shut his mouth. Twice. ‘Begging your pardon m’lady, but that’s none of your concern.’

She sat back with a sigh, blushing furiously. ‘No. Of course not. I’m sorry.’

He was picking at the wood of the bench rather frenetically. ‘I – I didn’t do anything with Arya, if that’s what you mean.’

It was Sansa’s turn to look alarmed. ‘ _Arya_? No, I didn’t mean – you didn’t, did you? She’s just a girl.’

‘More of a boy than a girl and all.’ Gendry grinned at her gently, a blotch of red on his neck. ‘No, m’lady, I didn’t.’ His face suddenly changed, as if it had just dawned on him why she might be asking him such a question. He tilted his head to the side and looked at her carefully. ‘Is everything alright, m’lady? Are you – being treated well?’

He knew as well, then. Probably they all did, except Shireen, she hoped. Why did everything always think Sandor was mistreating her? It was Joffrey, the golden-haired king, who had treated her so appallingly that she had scouted the walls of the Red Keep looking for the best place to jump. Sandor was the opposite – she just didn’t know what she was supposed to do. What was proper. Feeling him harden underneath her made her panic. ‘Everything’s fine, thank you,’ she said. ‘It’s just – it wasn’t something my mother and I ever spoke of.’

Gendry was staring at the floor. ‘Just don’t – say yes to everything. Not if you don’t want to. If he makes you. Don’t –‘ He put a hand on his head.

He didn’t seem to be really speaking to her anymore. ‘Did something happen?’ Sansa whispered. She rested her hand on his, stopping him from picking at the bench. 

‘The – lady. At Dragonstone. She – sort of made me. Sort of.’ He moved his hand away.

Sansa’s stomach burned. How could she _make_ him? The woman was capable of anything, though. A new thought flashed through her – did she make Sandor too? It made her shudder.

‘Sorry, m’lady. I spoke out of turn.’

‘No. You didn’t. You mustn’t think that. We should be able to be honest with each other. I trust you.’

‘You too, m’lady.’

‘Please call me Sansa. Won’t you? Did you call Arya m’lady?’

He gave a wry half-smile. ‘She’d have kicked me in the – she wouldn’t let me. Sansa.’

There was a rumbling cough behind her. Sandor was leaning on a pole, his head cocked. 

***

Sansa and the boy, voices soft as damned roosting doves. Can’t help being jealous. He’s part-prince or something, half Robert, half-serving wench, her age or thereabouts, her size too from what I remember, from what I can make out. Not a bloody lumbering blind fool like me. I don’t know what they were talking about but she stopped as soon as she saw me, and I know it wasn’t battle-plans.

Still, I don’t say anything else, and lie awake later, thinking, she’s had her fun with me now, a bit of light summery nonsense to keep her princess head fizzing, bit of practice maybe, and she’ll move onto him soon enough. A boy as green as her.

But she comes, and somehow there are lips and fumblings and I try not to think about putting my hands where they shouldn’t and wonder if she’s thinking about the boy. And then she’s lying with her ear on my chest, telling me that I creak like the ship in there, and I think, that’s just because I’m bloody old.

 _Gendry said – I don’t know if you heard_ , she says. I heard sugary little promises and him calling you by name, I think. She says _he said that the Lady Melis_ \- I interrupt. _Don’t call her a lady_ , I say. The black-hearted cloud of evil, twisted into the shape of a woman. She’s no more a lady than I’m the fucking king.

She keeps going. _She says that she – made him_ – she doesn’t finish, but I get the sense of it. Wasn’t quite expecting that. Feel a bit sorry for him then, for a moment, before I remember what she did to me. _Well, if he’d been chained up like I was, then he wouldn’t have had much choice in the matter_ , I say, thinking well that’s a first time to tell your pals about. Or not.

 _Did she - make you_? Sansa says, her voice all flittering, moth-like, her fingers the same. That’s what she’s worried about then. That she fucked me and all, and I liked it. That she’s got her to live up to. I bloody wished she had, and that she’d had her fill from it and not done this. Or maybe she’s thinking that she’s carrying my child. Christ, think of that – a dog crossed with her. A barking shadow.

 _She spared me that_ , I say. _Not as good to look on as that boy I expect_. She says, _don’t say that_ , and puts her finger in my mouth. _I wish we could have killed her_ , she says. _Some people are harder to kill than others_ , I say round her finger, thinking, I don’t think we’ve seen the end of her.

Storms are coming. Real storms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always for reading and commenting!


	23. Chapter 23

‘Land!’

The cry, high and boyish, came from Averey, sitting at the aft. Shireen turned to Sansa eagerly. She didn’t go to the side without someone holding onto her very tight now. Sansa smiled at her and took her hand.

Sandor was leaning on the main mast, his arms folded. Sansa slotted her hand under his elbow and tugged gently. She felt him resist for a moment, then shift himself upright and come with her to the side of the boat.

‘Is it?’ he said, very quietly.

There was a distant dark curve, shimmering on the horizon, to the right of them. ‘It is,’ she said, tightening her grip on his forearm. It was the first time she’d touched him outside of his chamber. He leaned down to her ear, and she told him what she could see – the way the land lay, the colour of the clouds, like early peaches, and two or three boats far off.

There was a shout from Kelvin behind them. Land again, on the other side.

‘The Sea of Myrth,’ said Ser Davos, joining them, standing at Shireen’s other side. She took his hand. ‘Half a day now.’ He squeezed Shireen’s hand and smiled gently down at her, reassuring, before glancing at Sansa’s arm in Sandor’s.

‘We’ve made it, then,’ said Sansa, looking back at Ser Davos resolutely.

‘We have.’ He looked at Sandor, who had turned his head to face him. Some sort of dark understanding seemed to pass between them. ‘For now.’

‘Ay,’ said Sandor.

***

Without my eyes, everything is dangerous, a threat. As we get closer, there are the sounds from every direction - other boats, men’s voices, things slapping the water. I hold onto my dagger like it’s the rail in the storm, for all the good it’ll do me.

As the boat rocks and slows, the sounds fill my head. I never noticed it so much at Kings Landing’s harbour but now, they’re everywhere, vying for space around my skull. Metal on metal, metal on stone, stone on wood, wood on stone. Ringing, thudding, mixing together. Voices everywhere, yelling, new tongues curling like serpents in the air. High voices, children screaming, women. Things being thrown, caught, missed maybe. I don’t know which way to turn, so I stay dead still, in the middle of the boat.

A hand is on my back. _We’re here_ , she says. _I gathered that, little bird_ , I say. Mustn’t let her hear my fear.

__And what the hells do we do now, I think._ _

__***_ _

__‘My lady?’ Ser Davos was addressing her again. Sansa was just taking in the sight of the city, a harbour full of people, smells of spices and herbs on the air, smoked fish, and huge baskets of cloth held high._ _

__‘Sorry, what?’ she said._ _

__‘We need to find rooms. For you, and for this one.’_ _

__Shireen was looking even more agog than Sansa, her eyes and mouth wide, as if to try and eat up as much as possible before it all vanished._ _

__‘What about you?’_ _

__‘Aye, me too I suppose.’ He cast a glance at Sandor. ‘Mendrel and the boys will stay on the boat. There’s like to be work for them in the harbour.’_ _

__Sansa opened her palm. ‘Will these be enough?’_ _

__Ser Davos looked at the jewels. ‘Ay, I reckon for now at least.’ He took them from her. ‘I’ll trade them for something a bit less obvious before we start haggling with landlords.’_ _

__Sansa felt a pang of sadness, then. Her jewels had been passed to her from her mother and her mother before that, and on, a line of strong, red-headed female Tullys, stretching far back, a delicate chain into distant history, and she was snapping it, just like that. She nodded._ _

__‘Let’s go,’ he said._ _

__Sansa turned to Gendry, who was eyeing the harbour and the tall white turrets a little way off with calm interest. ‘Coming?’_ _

__‘Are you sure, my lady –‘ he corrected himself – ‘Sansa?’_ _

__She smiled at him. He was still so humble and uncertain of everything. But he was her link to Arya, and he was brave and dependable. She needed him here. ‘Of course.’_ _

__He gave a quick, serious nod, and then winked at Shireen._ _

__Sandor was standing rigid next to her, listening to the world around him with every fibre of his being. He looked so fierce, like he’d kill every last stranger around him given half the chance, yet so vulnerable too._ _

__‘Can I – will you take my arm?’ she asked, very gently, knowing that the wrong words would make him turn worse than the storm they passed through._ _

__His chin almost dropped to his chest, and she heard him swallow a breath. His pride, dropping down into his lungs. ‘Ay.’_ _

__***_ _

__Ser Davos found them a small villa a little way inland, one of a row of two-storey buildings with flat roofs and made of pink-white stone. He had said that he hadn’t liked the look of the inns around here, eyeing Shireen._ _

__Four chambers, a kitchen and a private, walled yard. Ser Davos had asked Sansa if it had suited her, and that it wouldn’t be quite what she was used to. It seemed to be a place for people who were not highborn but not quite lowborn either – refined enough, but just family rooms, with nothing for servants. She’d had plenty of finery at Kings Landing, and been an utter prisoner. The same at Dragonstone – a black, stony kind. This was the first place since Winterfell in which she felt free. She knew that she was used to lady’s maids and cooks but she was almost excited about the idea of looking after herself. Looking after everyone._ _

__Sansa and Shireen’s chamber opened out onto the little yard._ _

__‘Can’t we have a room that looks onto the street?’ said Shireen._ _

__Sansa squeezed her hand. ‘It’s best we’re not seen. But look – you can see the sea.’ There was a misty triangle of it through other roofs and boat-masts, a deep, grey-blue._ _

__Sansa left Shireen staring out of the window and wandered over the landing._ _

__Gendry was sitting on his single bed, his hands clasped, looking very serious. He straightened when he saw her. ‘Never had my own room before.’ Sansa went to the window, which looked out onto a short garden with small, dark-leaved trees, their thin trunks bending like dancers’ hips._ _

__‘Do you plan to stay here?’ Gendry asked._ _

__She sighed and turned back to him. ‘I don’t know. I think so. For a while. I don’t really know.’ She looked at him a bit sheepishly. ‘I didn’t really think too far ahead.’_ _

__‘I’m glad you didn’t,’ he said, a hint of a grin in those ice-blue eyes. ‘You might have had second thoughts.’_ _

__Sansa grinned too, and Gendry looked more serious. ‘I’m very grateful to you, m’la- Sansa. I’d have died in that castle.’_ _

__Sansa looked at her hands. ‘I don’t know what’s – I’m sure it’s still going to be very dangerous.’_ _

__He shrugged, his face mild. ‘Better out here than shackled to a wall with crabs for company.’_ _

__And she smiled again._ _

__There was a sound from another room. Glass, smashing against stone._ _

*** 

Just when I get used to the boat we’re off it, and I’m in a fresh hell. Where everything’s new again, and it’s not the sea’s shouting around me, but people, about a thousand of them, and they sound like an army, all with the sole command to take me out. My legs have lead pins in them, and I can’t walk properly, not really. I have to shuffle, slide along. I stumble more than once, and she almost comes with me.

I’ve never felt more relieved to be indoors again, and my legs are bloody trembling by the time I’m sitting down in in my room. My room - what the hells does that mean? I could be anywhere. It doesn’t feel real, being here, like I’m suspended, hanging by wires, like nothing’s solid. I don’t quite believe it if I can’t see it.

I can hear her talking to the boy over the way, and then she’s at my door. _Is it – are you alright_? she says. I think, how the bloody hells should I know, I can’t bloody see it, can I? I know what’s in here, because I’ve put my fingers out, not knowing what I’ll find, thinking any second there’ll be something terrible there, rotten fruit, dead flesh, or the teeth of something. But there’s a just a bed, a small table, chair. And something on the wall, framed. A mirror.

 _Ay_ , I say. _It’s alright_. She’s in front of me. _Do you want to – shall we go around the rest of the house together_? she says. I want to grab her, shake her, shout in her face that this is all fucking hopeless, that what in the seven fucking hells is she doing, putting me in here with this band of half-breeds and smugglers and fish-girls, that what are we doing here, that what in the hells am I going to do with myself?

A rustle. She’s picking up the bits of glass of the floor. I’m not ashamed. And then she’s in front of me, kneeling, her hands on my thighs. _We’ll feel it_ , she says. _You can use your hands to learn where everything is_. 

I feel like I might come apart, my joints float clean away. _Alright_ , I say.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always for commenting! Sorry if it gets a bit slower here... am getting a bit busy in the real world. But HEY! I'll leave you for now with my Bonus Star Spot yesterday of Joe Dempsie aka Gendry in the show looking very seriously at second hand furniture whilst wearing football gear! Woo!


	24. Chapter 24

The markets were quite unlike Sansa had ever seen at King’s Landing. They were a riot of colour and noise and scents she’d never imagined. Spices in every desert shade heaped like great dunes, and greens and purples besides. Bundles of dried leaves, the stems tied together with bright blue twine, and chains of seed-pods hanging down above them. Great cuts of dried meats, some smoking on fires. Bottles of a curious, green liquid. A stall was selling multi-coloured glass lamps, shaped like tulips and teardrops; they held fluttering candle flames and made the narrow alleys flicker lavender, cerise, turquoise. Three or four different languages simmered around her, and so many people she could hardly breathe.

They were raven-haired and olive–skinned, with large dark eyes, high foreheads and slim noses. Most of the men wore long shirts almost down to their knees and light, baggy trousers. Ladies wore diaphanous organzas and silks, although those working at the markets were dressed in simpler styles and plain materials. Their gowns were sleeveless, but all women, whether high or lowerborn had lace scarves draped around their necks or over their elbows.

Lace was everywhere. Piled high, or drawn out so that people could run it between their fingers and examine the delicate patterns, which looked like pressed flowers or curling ferns or snowflakes. Other thicker, more colourful materials were stacked in towers that reached the ceiling of the covered market that they walked through, Shireen looking around wide-eyed and clutching tightly onto Sansa’s hand, and Ser Davos and Gendry on either side of them. Ser Davos’ hand was never far from his short sword.

They’d left Sandor at the house. He’d said, darkly, that he wasn’t going anywhere, and Sansa’s heart fell desperately for him. She knew he was in agony, in this strange place; that he was only just keeping himself together. She could the feel the tension in him, stretching his skin like a saddle, and could hear it in the way his jaw worked as she’d lain next to him. She had crept to his room after Shireen had gone to sleep, still half-mumbling about dolphins and white flowers, and he hadn’t said a word, just gathered her up to him, put his nose in her hair, and breathed very slowly. Sometimes his breath had stopped completely, and hers did too, as she waited and waited for him to exhale again.

That morning she had found him at the wall of the kitchen, his hands flat on the cold stone of the wall, as if wanting to move it, and had dropped his arms when he’d heard her there. 

Suddenly a woman thrust something under Sansa’s nose, smiling, a gap that you could fit a coin through between her front teeth. She was holding a small, dark cube, dusted in something powdery. It smelt like burnt tree bark with a trace of sweetness. The woman smiled and nodded and spoke in a thick, curling tongue.

Sansa smiled and shook her head. ‘No, thank you.’

The woman thrust it closer, her eyes wide and bright, and put her fingers to her own lips, gesturing that she should eat it. Sansa’s eyes darted to Ser Davos. He hesitated, and curled his fingers slowly around the handle of his sword. The woman seemed unfazed, and nodded enouragingly again. Sansa didn’t want to offend her, but this – this could be anything. It could be a trick.

Shireen suddenly spoke, uttering words Sansa didn’t understand. The woman crouched slightly, and held her hand out. Before Sansa could move, Shireen had taken the cube and popped it in her mouth, her eyes screwed shut. 

‘ _Shireen_!’ Sansa hissed. She held her hand out flat. ‘Spit it out.’ 

Shireen opened her eyes, and kept chewing obstinately. She swallowed and looked up at them all. Sansa, her heart in her mouth, waited for her to start foaming at the mouth, or clutching at her throat. 

Shireen’s face remained fixed, and she looked with clear impassivity at them. ‘It tastes like really dusty sugar. And fruit. Bitter. It’s nice.’ She turned to the woman and spoke again in another language.

The woman bobbed up and down, put her hand to Shireen’s clear cheek, and uttered a stream of florid, garbled syllables.

Sansa spoke with some astonishment. ‘Are you speaking Myrish?’

Shireen nodded casually. ‘Mmm-hmm.’

‘Where did you learn that?’

Shireen screwed up her nose and raised her eyebrows. ‘Where do you think? I had to find something to do with my day. I have a lot of books.’ She shrugged. ‘I can only speak about thirty words.’ The woman touched her on the shoulder and swept an arm behind her to a stall holding baskets and baskets of similar sweets, in jewelled colours. ‘Oh,’ said Shireen. ‘I think we have to buy some now.’

***

I have the place to myself whilst the rest of them take a fucking day trip out. All I can think is of all the dangers out there – that they’ll get robbed, that Sansa is going to get whisked away by some band of cunt Myrish bandits, that swarms of Baratheon sellswords are going to swoop on the little fish, slit Sansa’s traitorous, kidnapping throat right there in the street. Davos and the boy aren’t exactly kingsguard material. Fuck.

And if I’m not thinking about them, I’m listening to this house, which has its own language. For half the morn I was sure someone was here, and crept around like the world’s biggest mouse, listening for it, waiting for a sword to be rammed into my gut. But I can just hear more. Every sigh of the stone as the sun moves round, the wind shifting between the wood of the shutters. Fucking spiders scuttling over the floor. 

I try to get myself used to the place, as much as I can without wanting to throw my guts up in anger. Walk round, fingers first, finding the doorways, knowing the number of steps. Working out the furniture. Making a life-sized risen map in my skull, like that one in Dragonstone, except my new country is chairs and tiles and fucking bedposts. My mind drifts, imagining a real map, a map of the kingdoms - the sea between this place and Storm’s End, the way it barrels into the Flatlands in the shape of a deer with one long antler, Myr tucked in at its nose. How can I be here, in one of the Free Bloody Cities, after all my life on Westeros, and not be able to see it? I punch the wall and feel the cracks in it. Maybe I’ll punch myself a map of the kingdoms and all.

***

Sansa began to relax as they wandered out of the market and into the open air again, though she felt Shireen’s shoulders stiffen. She soon realised why. Away from the nodding, bidding market sellers, people looked at Shireen, hard. For some moments, she suddenly saw every approaching person as a threat, all recognising the Baratheon heir. An old man with a scar from ear to ear stopped right in front of them, pointed at Shireen, and began gabbling. Sansa froze, and Ser Davos and Gendry stepped up to flank them. A group of younger men and women looked over at them and laughed. She realised that it wasn’t Shireen’s royalty that made people stare. It was her face – the greyscale that she hardly noticed, just as she hardly noticed Sandor’s scars these days.

‘Perhaps we should get back, my lady,’ said Ser Davos.

‘Wait,’ said Gendry. ‘I’ll sort it out.’

He stalked off, but not towards the man, who was now turning away, muttering, or the younger group. He walked back the way they had come. 

Shireen hung her head, her light brown hair flung forward. Sansa managed to drag her to a low, dusty wall, and sat her down.

‘Ignore them,’ Sansa whispered. ‘They don’t know you.’ 

Shireen’s eyes were angry and glistening. ‘They know what I _look_ like.’

‘It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just the first thing they see. If they talked to you for even just a moment they’d change their minds. _Especially_ when they heard all your Myrish.’

Shireen just crossed her arms very tightly across her chest and shook her head very furiously. Sansa realised with sadness that, whilst Shireen would have the odd guard or maid looking at her queerly, everyone at Dragonstone was used to the way she looked. It was very different out here.

Gendry was coming back towards them, a drape of something bunched in one hand. He knelt down in front of Shireen. ‘Here you go, m’lady,’ he said, and unfolded a small lace shawl, in a pattern that reminded Sansa of some plants that grew on the outside walls at Winterfell. 

Shireen looked at it doubtfully, and put her hand out to it. ‘Why do I have to hide?’

Sansa took it from her, and wrapped it over her head, so that it concealed her cheek a little. ‘You’re not hiding. We’re right out in the open.’ She wrapped one end around another. ‘There. You look lovely.’

Shireen still looked a little quizzical, but one corner of her mouth came up as she looked thoughtfully at Gendry. ‘Thank you .’

Sansa smiled up at Ser Davos. ‘Let’s get some food.’

***

You can hear them a league off, the little fish’s voice bubbling like a bloody burst drain. She keeps at it as they come inside, Sansa’s light voice murmuring in there with her, heavier footsteps behind them. 

_Sandor_! she bloody yells, good enough to wake all the dead of Blackwater, and starts going on about everything they’ve seen, and I think, well, that’s a fucking nice summer’s day for you all then isn’t it, and wonder why Sansa isn’t saying anything. Mayhaps she’s checking the place over to see if I’ve broken anything else.

 _Have you been outside yet_? says the little one. _We have a yard, it’s nice_. She pulls at my hand. I stay put. _No one can see us from it_ , she says. _Come on_. I let myself be dragged. Gods. She’s as guileless and persistent as three bloody market sellers. 

She tells me where things are, and I put my hands out, through the kitchen, which is beginning to smell like fresh bread and something sour – cheese maybe. Table in the middle of the room that I jam my hip into, cursing. I should have known that was there. The oven. The side table and cupboard, jugs and cups set there. She puts one in my hand, and I cradle the cold clay and try not to think about hurling it to the ground.

The sun swipes over my face like a washcloth. Smells of lemonherb and greenness out here, and the sea, just about. I can hear the shouts of people further off – it’s quiet. Hands on my shoulders from behind, and hot breath on my ear. I’m hoping it isn’t Davos.

 _We brought you something_ , Sansa says. A yelp from the little one, and small fingers are prising mine open whether I like it or not, something light put in my palm. I sniff it. _What do I do with this_? I say, _smells like a shit_. _It’s not that_ , the little fish almost whispers, peeved in a way that cheers me. _You eat it_.

I sling it in my mouth, chew. Sweet bursts, something sharp too. It’s a bit like grinding down on a bit of saddle. _Tastes like a shit, too_ , I say, just to piss her off, and she squeals and hits me – a rap like a sprat flung at me – and scuttles away.

 _How are you_? says Sansa, soft as that sea-smell, and her hand comes onto my beard, on the edge of my chin. I pick a bit of whatever the hells that sweet thing was out of my teeth and don’t say anything. I don’t know how to answer in a way that will please her, not send her running. 

_We got food_ , she says, a trace of hope in her voice, coming round and standing beside me. There’s a nail scratching my palm, subtle as an ant. She turns my palm over and touches my knuckles, raw again from hitting the wall, dried blood from the mirror yesterday. _Get any wine_? I say, too fast. A long pause. The nail stops moving. She hums in a way that I think is a yes and gets up. 

I sit with the sun on my face, wondering how long I’d need to sit here before I burned clean away.


	25. Chapter 25

They spent two more days getting their bearings around the city. Sansa and Shireen went out walking again, with Davos and Gendry beside them. They explored more markets and the harbour, finding the boat and Mendrel and Kelvin on board. Averey had already found a bit of work with a large fishing vessel. Sansa’s jewels had turned into enough coin to keep them in the house for a while and fed for perhaps two weeks, Davos had said, and talked about looking for work at the harbour, using his ship for trade. 

No one claimed to be any good at cooking, though Ser Davos had shown Sansa how to light the oven, and she had begun to tentatively make simple boiled vegetables, and heat everyone’s water up so that they could wash. For now, they mostly ate lots of cold food – meats, cheeses, sharp pickled vegetables that made Shireen turn her face into a walnut – washed down with juices and ale and the tart green nectar that could be bought cheaply everywhere. Sandor had made a low sputter of disgust when he’d first tried it, and then become very used to it, very quickly.

Sandor. He still hadn’t left the house, except to sit outside in the yard. He drank wine faster than she could buy it. She had watched him glower as Ser Davos had talked about getting work with their stolen ship. Watched him sleep, heavily, as he did after the wine, and rub his hands over his eyes in the morning, as if he hoped it was all a dream, before feeling for her to find out if she was awake. She had watched Shireen drag him around inside, making him touch things, and though he growled at her a lot, he let her help, as long as he didn’t think that Sansa was watching. She realised that he hated her seeing him as needful and so much of the time pretended not to be there, even though she felt guilty about tricking him. 

The only time she found him relaxed was at night, when he was half-asleep. She would stand at his bedside in her sleeping shift, and he’d hear her and move over and pull back the covers. His fingers had begun to explore her again, catching her earlobe, thumbing a mole on her neck, tracing down her spine. She would lie very still, trying to ignore the wine on his breath. Neither of them would say a word, and she’d wake up at dawn with her back turned to him, tucked up into his waist, and slide out, back to Shireen, still feeling his warmth. 

***

I’m at the table with the smuggler, drinking the warmest, weakest ale I’ve ever had the displeasure of swallowing. An old man’s piss would taste better. He’s trying to tell me what he’s seen, as if I’m council and he’s giving a report. _There are sellswords about_ , he says, _as there always are, but no more, as far as I can see. Stannis hasn’t wind of us here yet_. He talks on, about soldiers, and the magisters here, the ones that run the city, and that we should stay low for now. He begins to talk about getting work with the ship, and I bristle up, thinking, alright, I realise I’m a useless fucking bit of steakmeat, you don’t have to rub it in. But I don’t say anything.

Sansa’s there, a little noise in her throat like a bird’s trapped there. _You alright there, my lady_? says the smuggler. _I thought we could go out_ , she says, hesitant. I know she’s talking to me. If I’d have been on my own, I would have said no, but no way in the seven hells do I want to look more fool in front of him. He says he’ll stay here with Shireen, and not to go far. I nod and rise, and her hand’s in my elbow, the other hand on top of my forearm.

We step out, onto the street, and the sounds change, bit by bit. Shipwork, far off, and voices, in two or three different languages, none of them mine. Voices that slow and quiet as footsteps pass us. 

I might as well be walking on air, or water. Stones are no more sure. Each step could be a step into a bloody canyon, an abyss, roaring sea beneath me, or one of the seven hells that’s going to get me one of these days. I’m as good as a fucking cripple – Sansa’s lost brother. She’s telling me everything she can see, what’s in front, to the side of us, and I’m half-listening, and half-trying to work it out for myself, learn the sounds. She walks me into a bloody wall, and I curse and hear her breath hitch. _You should put your hand out_ , she says, very quiet, _feel things_. I swallow down a breath, do as I’m bid, feel the smooth stone – a high wall – suddenly turn into a rougher one, the height of my waist.

I feel fucking naked without armour on, without a sword hanging at my hip. But what use would they be? I can’t fucking defend her. She’d do better to learn some swordplay, start guarding me. Gods.

She squeezes my arm. _Gendry_ , she says, which is just as well, as the footsteps come right up to us, and I’d have at least had a go at trying to floor whoever it was. He tells us he’s got work, in an armoury, sounds bloody smug about it and all. No doubt looking right at me, wondering what use I’m to be. I look away from them, over towards where I think the harbour is, try not to listen.

We go on. I put my hand on her wrist, find no dress there. I move my hand up further. _What are you wearing_? I say. _It’s the fashion_ , she says. _I thought I should try and fit in_. I stop and slide my hand up, past her elbow, feel her gooseflesh rise up. The thin shawl she’s wearing comes with my hand, up to her shoulder, the little bone there. The dress starts at her neck. It’s more skin than I’ve ever felt of hers before. _Seven hells, little bird_ , I say, thinking, I’m definitely not going to walk straight now.

***

Sansa almost fell apart when Sandor touched her arm, trying to work out what sort of dress she was wearing. They were right there, in a shaded part of the street - the odd person walking past carrying baskets of silks, a small pane of clear glass, bread loaves – and he was feeling her in a way he hadn’t even done in his bed. Maybe he’d forgotten that other people might be able to see. Maybe he didn’t care.

She tried to gather her senses, and pull him onwards, towards the market, trying to point out every landmark he might be able to hear or feel, her skin still tingling. He still wasn’t saying much, but he was walking a little less slowly. She wondered whether she should get him a stick – rembering Gervase at Winterfell – and thought that she would never dare ask him in a thousand summers. She stood closer to him, feeling his shirtsleeve on the bare skin of her arm.

At the near edge of the market, something made her stop, and pull Sandor to her. In a dark corner, a man, very small and slight, and dressed only in a bright green robe with bare legs, was holding the rapt attention of a small girl. For a strange moment, she had thought that it was Shireen, but the girl was much smaller, darker-skinned, a local. 

The man, who had much lighter skin, wrinkled as old parchment, was making strange, dancing movements with his hands in the air. 

‘What is it?’ Sandor said.

‘I’m not sure,’ Sansa said, and felt him tense up next to her. His hand instinctively moved to his hip, and, finding nothing there, he flexed his fingers and stood very stiffly.

The small man tipped a bottle of bright, purplish liquid that seemed to have appeared from nowhere into his hand. Time seemed to slow. He put his palm up in front of his face, his cool clear eyes fixed on the girl, raised his eyebrows, and blew. A small, curling ball of fire rose from his hand, into the air. The man blew at it again, and it rolled, up and sideways, and then he leapt up into the air and clapped his hands around it. 

The fire vanished. The girl stood rooted to the spot, astonished, and then clapped very tentatively and ran away. 

‘If you don’t tell me –‘ Sandor’s voice was taut. 

The man caught Sansa’s eye, just for a sliver of a moment, and smiled very gently before turning away, folding himself up in long green cloths and disappearing into the shadows.

‘It’s alright,’ she said. ‘I think it’s alright.’ 

She led him onwards, through the outskirts of the market, which seemed enough for Sandor, whose shoulders had risen, and jaw tightened.

A sorcerer. Sandor had been blinded by one sorcerer. Maybe he could be cured by another.

***

Next day, I’m at the table and the boy comes in, coughs, lays something down. A dull ring. Metal. 

_What’s this_? I say, though I know perfectly well what it bloody is. _A sword_ , the boy says. _I think I got the size right. It’s probably not as good a one as you’re used to, but_ – I stop listening, moving my hand along the cold steel, feeling it warm under my palm as I grip it. I test the point with my forefinger, and I feel like running my whole hand through it. 

_And what in the hells am I supposed to do with this_? I say. A pause. Damned gulls bleating outside. He says, _I thought you could train me_ \- and I’m up before he finishes that sentence, my chair clattering on the stone behind me, finding his neck easy enough, slamming him into the wall. A nice crack of his skull. _Train you how_ , I say, slow. His throat rises up against my thumb. _Sansa says you’re – you were – you are – the best fighter she’s ever known_ , he says. _Were_ , I growl, wondering what half-princes taste like.

 _You’ve got a bloody nerve, sticking this in my face_ , I say. I hold him up a bit – he’s dangling, toes just on the floor. But his voice stays calm. _You’re still going to know more than me_ , he says. _I want to learn. How to fight. So if – she comes again, I can defend myself_. I let him go and he slides down a bit, dry sounds in his throat.

 _Don’t ask me again_ , I say. _You’re taking the fucking piss_. 

A pause. _You managed_ that _alright_ , he says.


	26. Chapter 26

‘You’re not saying it right. Try again.’

Shireen was a hard mistress. Worse than Septa Mordane. She was teaching Sansa the Myrish words she knew – a number that was growing, as she picked up more from the streets, chatting with some ease with market sellers, haggling even, whilst Sansa and Ser Davos or Gendry hovered, with some embarrassment at their own shortcomings, behind her. Sansa had heard High Valerian – a tongue she knew just a smattering of – and other languages too, but Myrish was difficult. It didn’t seem to sit comfortably on her tongue, with its thick, lisping consonants and rapid syllables.

Still, if she learnt Myrish, perhaps she might stand a better chance of talking to the green-robed man, the sorcerer she had seen, and asking him about curing blindness. She had risen early that morning and gone out alone – even though she knew it was unwise – to that same shadowy corner of the market to find him. He hadn’t been there. There was only some scattered straw on the cobbled stones, and a strange smell, like herbs and burnt lemon rind. Sansa had vowed to return every day until she found him. The more she thought about it, the more her hopes had risen that she could find a way to cure Sandor.

‘Again,’ said Shireen.

There were sounds in the yard. Sharp, dullish raps, and men, grunting, breathing heavily. Sansa rose in a panic, dashing to the window, pushing open a shutter, and Shireen rushed to join her.

Sandor and Gendry were fighting. She went to cry out, to yell at Sandor – or Gendry – to stop, when she realised that they were both holding wooden swords. 

‘If you bloody drop your shoulder, they’ll have your arm off,’ she heard Sandor say. ‘Again.’

Gendry wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Sandor was standing with his sword outstretched in front of him, his head cocked. 

‘What are they doing?’ said Shireen.

‘Training,’ Sansa said, with some wonderment. 

Gendry whacked him on the arm and Sandor grunted.

‘Got you that time,’ Gendry said.

‘I’m fucking blind, you half-breed,’ said Sandor. ‘What do you bloody expect?’

***

For once, they were all round the kitchen table, with Shireen excitedly telling Ser Davos and Gendry what she’d seen at the harbour that day. They had also found gardens full of olive trees and with high, curling plants with white flowers like underskirts. Sansa had placed bowls in front of them all and joined them, listening to Shireen’s chatter. 

She suddenly saw everyone’s faces. They were all – apart from Sandor, who sat straight, listening – looking at the table solemnly. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’

No one spoke. Ser Davos and Gendry stole glances at each other. Shireen brought her finger up to her bottom lip and pulled at it. 

‘Tell me!’

It was Sandor who spoke first. ‘It’s the stew.’

That wasn’t what she’d been expecting. ‘The – what about it?’

Again, no one spoke. 

‘It’s not very good,’ Sandor said, drily.

Sansa felt the heat rise to her cheeks, hotter than any soup-steam. ‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s _horrible_ ,’ said Shireen in a very loud whisper. Sandor moved his elbow into her ribs.

Gendry burst out laughing. Ser Davos and Shireen joined him. Sandor folded his arms, looking faintly amused. 

Sansa had never felt more humiliated in all her life. ‘Fine. Cook for yourself.’ And she stomped out of the room.

***

I swear it’s later than usual. She still hasn’t joined me. Just as well, as I’ve taken myself twice in my fist, just to get it out. It’s best to – just so I don’t bloody forget myself. By the time she finds her way into my bed, I’m just about spent enough that holding her is enough. Until the morn, anyway, when I use all the strength of the gods to hold myself back. I know I’m as lucky as hells to have her here at all – it’s more than I ever imagined – but I can’t help wanting to have more of her. All of her.

The click of the door. She slides in beside me, not saying anything. _Thought you might not be coming_ , I say. She turns over, a little huff of breath right in my face. I put my hand out, find her cheek. _It’s good to see you training Gendry_ , she says, though I can hear her voice is stroppy. I don’t say anything, just put my thumb in her mouth. Don’t know why I gave into him, really, it’s as futile as a eunuch in a whorehouse. But gods, it gives me something to bloody do.

 _So_ , I say. _What’s for dinner tomorrow_? There’s a silence, and she whacks me on the shoulder.

***

The next morning, Sansa awoke to the whines of the gulls. She was curled up on her side, against Sandor’s chest. He had an arm round her ribs. She shifted her hips, and he moved too, his slow breaths catching. Behind her, she felt him harden against her bottom, and tried to carefully make a space between them. 

Sandor’s arm tightened around her. He wasn’t letting her move. ‘Just because it’s there doesn’t mean I’m going to do anything with it.’ His voice was full of grain and scratchiness, still half-asleep.

Sansa stilled. She couldn’t help it. She knew what he wanted, and she did too, a little, but the thought of - being with him like that terrified her. After all the threats that Joffrey would pour into her ears, words that shouldn’t have ever been used that way, with such casual viciousness, she was just so scared of intimacy. Since the death of her father, men had only ever been used as weapons against her, things hurled at her. To hurt her.

She tried to relax, to feel him there up against her. ‘Sorry.’

‘No need for that,’ he said into her hair. His hand moved over her shift, from her stomach to her breast, and she felt something loosen in her. He pressed a little harder, and his thumb grazed her nipple. Sansa’s mind went blank. ‘Just –‘ and he gathered her in even further, his voice sinking, and a warmth in there she’d never quite heard. ‘Stop bloody trying to leap away. I’ll not bite.’ And, gentle as anything, he took her earlobe between his teeth, and kissed her there. ‘Much,’ he said.

***

She lets me touch her, a little more than usual, and I swear I can feel her blood coursing underneath my palm, hear her pulse going like a little bolting pony. Her lips are just about the best thing I can hope for with the way I am now – soft and warm as just-baked bread, and her tongue slides in and all these days, which is enough to make me spend myself right there and then. Gods. 

***

They had slept a little more and Sansa had woken up to a light the colour of herb tea and lain listening to Sandor breathe. He had touched her, and she had kissed him in a way that had surprised herself. He _was_ different. Not like the others, the men who had leered at her at Kings Landing, who she knew were thinking of all the things they’d do to her, at Joffrey’s bidding or no. Perhaps she had to trust him more. She had got them this far.

She slid out from his heavy grasp. He sniffed and turned over, and she tried to imagine him waking up and fixing his deep grey eyes on her again. His real eyes, not these cloudy, drifting ones. She would find a way to make it happen. She’d do anything.

Gendry accompanied them down to the market, going the long way round before he would head the armoury. It seemed to be going well there, even though he spoke no Myrish – though he’d learnt the words for 'iron', 'sword' and 'hot' quickly enough. He would be paid tomorrow for his week’s work, and though it wouldn’t be much – he’d already borrowed in advance to get Sandor’s sword – it would help. 

‘I’m so grateful to you, Gendry,’ Sansa said, grabbing his arm.

‘No more than I am to you,’ he said, smiling sheepishly. ‘I’m alive, remember?’ He stopped smiling as Sansa’s grip tightened. ‘Is that him?’

There he was. Green robes, sitting cross-legged in the same corner that she had last seen him in, his eyes closed, the sun on his face. She nodded.

‘I’m not sure about this, Sansa.’ 

He’d already been imprisoned by one sorceress. Of course he would be mistrustful. 

‘If you can think of another way to cure him, just tell me.’

Gendry didn’t say anything. 

Sansa pulled him over with her, and stood next to the man. He didn’t move. She coughed, very politely, and, very slowly, he opened his eyes and gazed at them.

***

In the yard, the little one sits next to me, sighing loud enough to wake the White Walkers. She sounds bored, and I think, if she even thinks about complaining I’ll fucking eat her alive. I never thought my damned days back at Kings Landing were filled to the brim, but they bloody were, compared to this. The bloody bastard-mad prince – _king_ – to guard, men to train, Stranger to see to, equipment to maintain. And Sansa to keep an eye on.

An eye on. Gods, I swear every other sentence any of this lot say to me is _don’t you see_ , or _have a look_ , or _we’ll see about it later_. I sit around the house, brooding on it, brooding on everything. Never had so much time to look at my bloody insides. I think on my brother, and dream of ways of killing him, not that I ever will now. I think on my sister, though I can’t picture her face these days, just hear her shouting my name loudly from the other side of the moat, waving some bunch of feathers or something at me. I think on my father, not that he ever said much, not that he hardly said anything at all, once my sister disappeared. And my mother – there’s a tiny shred of a memory of her, me being as high as her knee, a bit of flour-dust or warm milk or something. Fuck, all I can do is think – maybe it’ll be good to keep talking the boy through his swordplay, though I feel like a complete idiot doing it. I trained soldiers. _Goldcloaks_.

The little one sighs again, a sigh that says, ask me why I’m sighing. I sit there. She sighs again, even louder, like a bloody avalanche. I give in. _What_ , I say. _I feel funny_ , she says. _Don’t know what the hells that’s supposed to mean_ , I say. I hear her picking at the bench, nail on wood. _Everyone looks at me_ , she says. Scratch scratch.

She’s not bored, then. _Well, you know why_ , I say. She doesn’t say anything. _You just have to get used to it_ , I say. _Did you get used to it_? she says. I think, never, I just imagined slicing anyone who shot me that buggering look - a look like I’m a load of stampeding aurochs - straight through, like they’re soft butter. Until Sansa, and the way she used to look at me near-bloody made me want to chew my own face off. 

Gods, what I’d give to know how she looks on me now. I can’t quite picture her eyes, though know they’re as blue as a shallow sea with light blasted on it. Does she try and hold it in, looking at the horror of my face? Does she just ignore it altogether, keep her eyes well away, look on the parts of me that aren’t so bad? She’s still as fearful as a bloody rabbit under the eye of an eagle when I’ve a hold of her – I can feel her damned bones rattling.

 _Yes_ , I say. _‘Cept of course now I can’t see how they look at me_. I lean down to her. _So be grateful you can see them looking_. She sighs, quieter than before, a little folded-up thing, scratches again. _Alright, Sandor_ , she says. _I’ll try_.

They all call me by my name, here. My nickname has sloughed off me like a bit of dead flesh. I’d say I felt lighter because of it but it’s not quite true. That name was as good as an extra sword at my hip. And now – when I am not much more than an old woman - now I don’t deserve it. 

***

Sansa had come home empty-handed. The man had given her strange, ancient smiles, and shaken his head, not understanding her hand-gestures and badly-pronounced Myrish words for ‘eyes’ and ‘dark’ and ‘help’. He had opened his hand out and there had been a stemless flower-bud there, and she had taken it and given him a coin, and walked away, disappointed. It was too dangerous to just take something from him without them really understanding one another. She needed help.

Shireen was lying on her stomach in the yard, drawing. She rolled over when Sansa came out. ‘Shall we always live here, all together?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Sansa, kneeling down to look at her drawings. Of course they couldn’t. At some point, surely, they needed to make themselves known to someone, or travel to another city, or take a boat back across the Narrow Sea, to Saltpans or further north, and find their way back to Winterfell. Though she knew that Ser Davos – and Sandor – thought it best to bide their time for a while, seeing as no one knew they were here. It seemed safer to be in a Free City than back on Westeros, rife with war and death. And _Joffrey_.

Shireen returned to her paper. ‘Well, I like it. I like everyone being here.’

‘Me too.’ It was a strange sort of family, but it was all the family she had, for now. She thought of her mother, and of Robb, and wondered if they were together now, in a castle, or camped in some rainy forest. And if Arya had joined them. Perhaps even Bran and Rickon had been found, and they were all mourning her, and wondering if _she_ was alive, and not the other way round. Perhaps she should get a message to them.

‘You don’t have to keep sneaking out at night, you know.’

Sansa felt the heat rise to her neck. ‘What? What do you mean?’

‘I’m not an _idiot_ ,’ said Shireen casually, adding another sail to her ship.

Sansa could not have been more embarrassed. She was a lady, and was probably supposed to be setting a good example to Shireen. Showing her how a highborn woman should hold herself. And instead she was stealing into a man’s bed every night, and doing – well, she still didn’t really know what she was doing. ‘I – I –‘

Shireen glanced up. ‘You really like him, don’t you?’

Sansa swallowed. ‘I do.’ More than that, she thought. She sat up straight, and tried to look like an adult. ‘And I know you do, too. So I need your help. I need you to find out some more words for me.’

Shireen grinned.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've just upped the rating a little...

Sansa’s lying next to me again as she seems to like, her skirt bunched up, enough material as a damned tablecloth, one leg tucked up into her waist. She’s not asleep. I know it, ‘cause her other foot’s sliding over my ankle, up my calf. She probably thinks she’s acting the whore but to me it’s as innocent as a damned lamb, and truth be told, frustrating as hells. Her heel shoved in my crotch is what I want, and more besides. I put a hand on her shoulder, a finger under the hem. _Aren’t you hot_ , I say. Might as well try. 

Her toes stop on my shin. _What would you have me wear_ , she says, and I swear there’s a scrap of slyness laced in. I try not to snort. _What do you think_ , I say. There’s a dry sound as she opens her mouth and for a moment she doesn’t move. 

Then she’s up, away, out of the bed and I think, well fuck, there I go ruining it again, can’t keep my goatkid gloves on can I, when I realise she’s still there, standing somewhere in the room, and there’s the sound of material, rubbing together. A soft working, a swishing, and something sighing, tumbling to the floor.

Her foot is lifted, and comes back down. And then the other. I stop breathing.

She’s back next to me, and I hardly bloody dare move, reach out to her. My cock’s gone as hard as a broadsword. Her breath’s on my nose, gentle. I put my fingers out and find her side there, smooth as a pile of raw silk, and her ribs jutting out underneath it. She’s on her stomach, and I run my thumb over her back and – gods – down to her arse, the curve of her, a clay gourd. I can feel her gooseflesh rise up. She’s not even got smallclothes on. 

I hear her breathe in sharp, and she goes as rigid as a statue in a crypt. Any moment I think she’s going to leap out again, scared as a damned vole, but she stays put, and says _you too, then_. I say _are you sure_? and she says _ay_ , as gentle and calm as anything, and it’s a needle in the belly hearing her say that word, my word.

I hoist my shirt off, but not my lower half. I swear it’s still too soon, as much as I want her, want nothing more than to be in her. Her fingers come out, little match strikes on my belly, my chest. Never had anyone touch me like this, exploring, like I’m a map of a mountain range she’s scoping out, like that Dragonstone table. Women’s hands have always grabbed and clutched, hard and businesslike, and with good reason and all. Sansa’s like those feather dusters the King’s Landing maids use, and it tickles and makes me clench my stomach muscles tight. 

Can’t see her face to know what she’s thinking – part of me feels as shy as anything, half-stripped in front of her. Is she looking at all my old wounds, my burns, the wardrobe of battles and fights and tourneys? Is she thinking why the hells she couldn’t be taking a tumble with some whey-faced knight? Or with Gendry? But she makes a little sigh and I feel the hard little crescent of her fingernail in the hair of my stomach and I think, she can’t see me as so bad, then.

I can’t keep patient much longer, and flip her over onto her back. Can’t still quite believe she’s there, stripped bare at last. I imagine her paleness – it’s hard when everything’s so black. I try and do the same as her, being gentle as moth-wings, fingers coming up over her ribs and onto her breasts, which feel small and round and completely fucking perfect. Her breath’s gone all stuttery and gods, I want to bury my nose in her, in all of her. My palm comes down her belly like I’m smoothing out mortar, and she sucks it in underneath me. I turn her over again.

Neither of us is saying a damned word. Silence as loud as a royal bloody fanfare. I send my hand down her back again, the raised boulders of her spine, over her arse, and slide a finger down between her thighs. She’s holding them dead tight together but I can feel a little pool of wetness. I go in again, a bit deeper, and she makes a sound that’s a mix of a sigh and a child trying to answer their maester’s history question. I use my knuckles to push her legs apart, just a bit, so I can go in further, and she gives a little whimper and I’m grasping her like I would the haunch of a horse and I swear I could lift all of her up. 

I slide my other hand under her belly and down, and find the nub of her, and as I do she jerks like a fish on a line and leaps halfway up the bed. _You alright_ , I say and she says _yes, I – I, it’s –_ and I say _this too much for you_ and she ums and says _no, it’s – I_ and she can’t string her words together which I take for a good sign and so I keep on going, one thumb stroking her from underneath, my middle finger sliding into her from behind.

She’s tree sap. She smells of almond-milk.

 _You have to breathe, little bird_ , I say. Suddenly she turns over onto her back, letting out a big sigh like the wheeze of a bellows, and I carry on that way, and I can feel her heat spreading up my arms. I can almost forget everything else right now. Gods, I wish I could see her.

Her breath’s falling over and over, oak leaves in autumn, and I can feel her tighten around me. She suddenly stops, all her limbs going dead. _Want me to stop now_? I say. _I – it’s – I don’t know_ , she says, her words all separated again. _Well, have you, you know, finished_? I say, wondering what the highborn way to say it is. _I don’t know_ , she says again, and I don’t need eyes to know she’s blushing like mad. 

_How will I know_ , she whispers, and I think, what, has she not done this to herself before? And I lean right up to her, kiss her earlobe, and her cheek, and slide my fingers in again, two this time, and say, _oh, you’ll know, little bird, and I will and all_.

***

Sandor asked her to disrobe in all but the actual words, and Sansa decided there and then that this time she wasn’t going to be cowed. She was a woman now, and she should start acting like one. Someone who had escaped not once but twice, who had successfully rescued – so far at least – two prisoners from the castle-belly of a would-be king, and stolen his heir in the meantime, who was a step closer to working with a sorcerer, shouldn’t be scared of being intimate with someone she cared for so much. She wanted to be with him, no matter what. 

Her fingers were thick and thimble-like as she removed her shift, her smallclothes, and she watched Sandor’s frame freeze as he heard what she was doing. Somehow, without his fierce eyes fixed on her properly, she felt more confident, and slipped back in alongside him, wondering what on earth was going to happen next.

Soon he was exploring her, and his hands were so gentle, making the hairs on her skin rise up. It was so - _indecent_ that it was ridiculous. She thought of all the times she’d seen his hands at work at King’s Landing, training with swordsmen in the courtyard, clenched behind him as he stood guard by Joffrey, usually covered in blood and dirt one way or the other. Here they felt like the hands of a craftsman or a baker, careful and deft, smoothing down to her bottom. She wondered, not for the first time, what the rest of him looked like. Felt like. 

He didn’t seem to want to remove his breeches, for which she was secretly relieved, but soon she was staring at his naked torso, which was broad and pale and covered in a wealth of dark hair, all the way from his neck to his waistline. Sansa made herself touch him the way he did to her, light fingers tracing his scars, of which there were many. She wondered if he might tell her about the story of each on some day. Without his gaze on her, she swore she felt bolder. 

And then Sandor was in charge again, and his hands were on her stomach, and her breasts, which made her mind go completely blank, and she was so glad that he couldn’t see her raging blushes. She hoped that to him she seemed like a perfectly calm and confident young woman, doing the sort of thing that all women did, as common as eating or sleeping or dressing. And then his finger slipped inside her, and the blushes spread to her neck. 

Sansa had explored herself a bit of course, but she’d never put fingers up _there_ , inside herself. And she definitely hadn’t had fingers inside her _and_ rubbing on her nub, which is what seemed to be happening. It was just as well he reminded her to keep breathing – she’d probably have expired completely. 

It was different someone else doing it. Better, but more difficult, too. There was a sensation of sweet, purplish near-pain between her legs, and another. She felt like melted butter, and there was a sort of strange anguish too. She suddenly realised that he had been doing it for ages. He must be exhausted. Or bored.

There was an awkward moment as he asked her if she had finished. When would she be finished? Did you get the same sensations with someone else’s hands as your own? Was that right thing to do anyway? Gods, she had no idea. But then his voice was throaty and low in her ear, and he inserted another finger into her, and she stopped worrying about it and just concentrated like mad on the feeling of his knuckles against her, and the throbbing pulses that were beginning to happen.

He was right. When it came, she really knew. By this time, Sandor was half-leant over her, his hair hanging down onto her face, and she was clutching onto his shoulder like she might pull it off. There was a slow, sure build-up and then a violent flooding of feeling, like a quick bruise, and Sansa let out a long gasp that she was sure was loud enough for the whole house to hear. 

Sandor wiped his hand on the inside of her thigh. ‘There you are,’ he said at her ear.

‘Here I am,’ she replied, the first coherent thing she had said in rather a while.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Cause there's no GoT this week... wargh!

_Sandor_.

My name’s called, more than once, like doves up in the rafters. Been half-asleep on the bed, though it’s day. Nothing else to bloody do here.

 _Are you awake_? she says. I shuffle up a bit, wipe my mouth. She sits next to me, fingers on my wrist. _Ay_ , I say, wondering if she’s come for another round. Maybe she’s a taste for it now. I bloody have. I pull her over to me a bit.

She comes, puts her hand on my chest, kisses me. Gods, she tastes of summertime. She’s been outside, too – there’s a lick of salt in there, and smells from the market, spices and herbs, burnt sugar maybe. I can smell it on her clothes. I bite her lip, wish I could bite more of her, grasp her by the waist. A hum in my ear, and she shifts backwards a bit. _Will you come downstairs_? she says, and I hear something in her voice, something like excitement, or worry, or both tangled up together. _What for_? I say. It’s not my fucking nameday, so I don’t suppose there’s a surprise feast down there. 

_Just – come_ , she says. I swipe a hand over my face, try to wake up properly, thinking about tugging her underneath me and stripping her bare. _This better be worth it_ , I say. 

***

Sansa, Shireen and Gendry had been out early. The sorcerer had been in his gloomy corner as she’d hoped, unfolding his hands to reveal a lemon and lime-coloured canary to a small huddle of people, who watched it flare up into the sky and tossed some coins at his feet before dispersing.

He smiled when he saw Sansa and bowed and nodded, before reaching out to Shireen. She flinched slightly, but he laid a gentle hand on her arm, put his fingers behind her veil to her ear and brought out a bright yellow and green feather. Shireen looked in awe it at on his palm. He clasped his fingers over it and unclasped them just as quickly, and the feather was gone. 

Shireen looked up at Sansa and Gendry, a broad grin on her face. ‘He _is_ a sorcerer.’

She began to talk to him in her bold Myrish, the gaps where she got stuck filled with gestures – her hand up very high, her fingers over her eyes. The sorcerer answered and seemed to ask questions, in a strange, keening voice, looking at her intently and with calm interest. For a moment he crossed his legs, placed his forearms in his knees and closed his eyes, his face becoming as smooth as a glaze. Sansa wondered if he’d suddenly gone to sleep. The eyes opened – bright green opals – and he got up and curled a finger towards Shireen.

She looked at Sansa. ‘He says to follow him.’

Sansa glanced at Gendry, who frowned, eyeing the sorcerer pensively. He nodded.

They were led through a thin alleyway, full of dust and bird droppings, and through another, covered this time, the ceiling getting closer. And another. Alleyways twisted and turned, maze-like, and the sorcerer was always ahead of them, turning a corner quickly, making them scuttle to catch up. Occasional doorways were covered only with diaphanous cloths that fluttered in the breezes to reveal dirty-haired children or old ladies, who peered up at them curiously. It seemed to get quieter and darker. Behind her, Gendry didn’t say anything but she knew he was growing uneasy.

They turned abruptly, and Sansa almost clattered into Shireen. This alleyway had ended in a rounded room almost like a cave, with pale limestone walls and candlelight. Strange smells, intense lavender and orange peel mixed with something acidic and vinegary. The sorcerer turned around to them, smiling. He gestured with his hand and gave a very low bow.

In a dark corner was a pile of rags. And the rags grew.

***

Sansa leads me downstairs and I begin to get a bad feeling. It’s too quiet, yet I’m sure I can feel a heaviness in the air, a heaviness that means people. You can sense the weight of skin and bone and sinew.

She takes me to the kitchen. _We’ve found someone who can help you_ , she says. _What in the hells does that mean_? I say. I hear her swallow, and then I smell it – something sharp and coloured, like old wine and pepper and dead flowers. _You’ve brought someone here. Into our house_ , I say, feeling like a fool because I know they’re right there and I think I know what’s coming.

 _Two people_ , says the little one, brightly. She’s in on it too, then. They’re fucking fairy-headed idiot girls, merrily opening the door to strangers, into the house that harbours smugglers and kidnappers and princesses and heirs and blind fucking useless dogs.

There’s a new voice, then, and I start, reach for my sword, which isn’t there. A voice that’s high and thin, like it’s been stretched on a rack. Gabbling. _The fuck’s he saying_? I say.

The little one chirps. _He says magic is – little – light fingers and tricks, sometimes_ , she says, stopping and listening. _But some_ – she stops and I think, fucking get on with it, then - _is real_ , she says.

***

Sansa might have expected that Sandor would be this way. That he wouldn’t fall to his knees and clutch her round the waist in gratitude. That he’d look more ferocious than ever, like he wanted to slice everyone right through.

The sorcerer, it seemed, was something like an apprentice to someone else. The pile of rags had in fact been a rotund man with long white hair trailing down his back like bindweed. He had dark skin and one of his front teeth was missing. Gendry had stood up straight and tried to look fierce, and the man had smiled at them and made gestures with his hands. 

They had sat cross-legged on the floor and the smaller man had served them tiny, eggshell-sized cups of mint tea. Gendry had sniffed his and placed it carefully by his hip. Shireen had happily chatted away, gesticulating again. The large man had listened and nodded very sagely, and when he had spoken his voice had been surprisingly high and breathy, like he was part-flute. His hands moved through the air, a pair of hummingbirds.

Shireen had turned. ‘He said he won’t just give us something. He needs to see him.’

Sansa had thought carefully. She couldn’t quite imagine dragging Sandor all the way down these dark alleyways – if nothing else, he’d have to crouch down most of the way. ‘Alright,’ she had said. ‘Ask him to come with us.’

And now Sandor was growling in her ear and pulling her backwards with him into the hallway. ‘The fuck you think you you’re doing?’

His coarseness startled her. Last night he’d been folding low, gentle words in her ears, and – the memories of the things he’d done to her were still making her knees wilt. She took a calm, deep breath. ‘I found a man in the market. When I was with you. I thought he was a sorcerer, and he is, but he’s the servant of a real one. Someone –‘ she put a hand on his arm. ‘I think he’s strong, Sandor. I think he might be able to cure you.’

Sandor straightened, his chest coming out. ‘You think I’m going to let someone else near me after what she did?’

She saw his fear then. He wasn’t just frightened of fire anymore. She spoke very gently. ‘There’s good magic as well as bad. There must be. And if she can do that to you, why can’t someone else be able to change it back?’

He was shaking his head furiously. ‘You brought strangers into this fucking house.’

‘Sandor, please.’ Sansa squeezed his arm. ‘Don’t you want to try?’

‘You’re relying on that little girl to understand everything he’s saying? He could be saying anything. That he’s a fucking merman. That he can change a ship into a horse. That he’s actually just a drunk old man, and he’ll do it for –‘ he jerked towards her. ‘How much are you paying him?’

‘He hasn’t asked for coin. Though if he does, I will find it. It’s my fault, Sandor, everything is. Please. I want to make you better.’ _I’ll do anything_ , she thought.

He shrugged her off and stood very still, his glassy eyes facing the wall. ‘Where the hells is Davos?’

‘He’s with his ship. Looking for trading work.’

There was a long pause. What Sandor said then surprised her greatly. ‘I’m not going in there until he’s back.’

***

I’m upstairs. Left them and their foul-smelling foreign trickster cunts down there. Let them all be turned into spiders, or toads, or specks of dust. It’s a fucking joke. Not one but two fucking charlatans in our house - and the bloody boy, who I thought had more sense in his head, helped bring them here. The smuggler is the only one left who I can at least half-trust to get a good look at them.

I know she wants to help. I know she’s doing it for me. But I can’t just – the memory of that red fucking bitch-whore standing over me, her eyes dancing like dervishes just as she poured that stuff into my eyes. She was the last thing I saw, and if I’m ever near her again I’ll fucking tear her limbs off and use them to club the rest of her to death. Fuck.

The door. The boy’s back with Davos. I hear his voice, low, amongst all the others, the whine of the strangers in there too, like an itch. I wait for a bit, then let my fingers take me downstairs.

Davos comes to the hallway. _What do you make of them_? I say to him. He sniffs, like he always does, that damned bloody measured way of his. _Hard to say_ , he says. I can hear him thinking on it. _I don’t think I’ll ever be a fan of sorcery. Shireen and Sansa seem sure enough. Gendry maybe too. But come on man, it can’t get any bloody worse, can it_?

Worse. My eyes could burn out of my fucking skull. My brain drain clean out of my ears. I could never touch Sansa again. Hear her. Smell her. Taste her. 

I chew on my tongue like it’s a bit of dried beef. _Fine_ , I say.

***

Sandor came in, his face a thundercloud, and Sansa’s heart fell into her feet. He would do it. He was doing it for her, even though he was terrified.

She took his hand – she was no longer embarrassed about touching him in front of the others. They all knew how it was between them. ‘You should sit down. So he can look at you.’

A long breath. He nodded. She moved his hand to the back of a chair by the table, and he slowly, awkwardly sat down. 

‘You don’t all have to fucking stand there looking at me,’ he said. There was a sudden movement, the thick silence broken, as Ser Davos took Shireen by the shoulders and shunted her out of the door, to the yard, she protesting loudly about being needed to translate. Gendry followed. Sansa turned to go and felt his fingers on her hand.

‘Not you,’ he said.

She stood very close to him, her waist touching his shoulder. The sorcerer – the real one, who had been sitting cross-legged in the corner of the kitchen very patiently all this time with his servant standing by him, got up and walked over to Sandor.

A strange calm seemed to have taken over the room, something warm and lullabying. The sorcerer put out a large, wrinkled hand – Sansa could see veins risen up like great rivers – and placed it over Sandor’s eyes. Sandor jerked so violently that she thought he would come off his chair completely. The sorcerer was unfazed and kept his palm there.

Sandor stilled, his loud breaths slowing. There was a long pause. Seagulls mewled faintly, and Shireen was still talking loudly outside and kicking the wall.

The sorcerer said three or four words to his servant, who produced, seemingly from nowhere, a small bowl and three vials. They were each a slightly different shape, size and colour – one bulbous and glinting, another slim and with a tiny bit of ink-black liquid, and the final one clear, and in bubbled glass. In deft movements, the servant placed the bowl on the table and poured all of the clear liquid in, adding two drops each from the other bottles. A faint curl of steam rose up. He passed it to the sorcerer with a bow of his head.

The sorcerer removed his hand from Sandor’s face. Sansa wondered if Sandor had gone to sleep – he was so still. 

There was a strange sound, a murmured chant, from the sorcerer’s lips. It repeated, over and over, almost song-like, and Sansa swore that she could almost see it in the air, rising from him, the words dancing and catching the light. Sandor was still holding onto Sansa’s hand.

The sorcerer dipped his fingers into the bowl and, like a spider pouncing, flicked them outwards. The drops of steaming liquid hit Sandor’s eyes. 

He blinked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta so much for the reviews! I keep writing because you all spur me on!


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for waiting, people! Am back from a remote island which had no internet...

Never thought I’d be more afraid of anything than fire.

But before that, I never thought I’d be more afraid of anything than my brother. Always bigger than me, always stronger, louder, he threw himself around the keep, frightening the maidservants even when he was six or seven, frightening the _guards_. Everyone was frightened of him, even my father. How a boy like that came from my mother I don’t know. But then mayhaps if she was alive now she’d look at both of us and wonder.

That fucking toy. I just wanted to have a look at it, even though I knew if he caught me he’d hurt me. He always got the best cuts of meat, the warmest cloak, the sturdiest boots. The nicer toy. I’d only just picked it up before he came piling in, yelling at me, picking me up by the neck and – 

In my dreams, I still feel it, hear it, taste it. Smell it.

And now I’m afraid of fucking sorcery, too. Though maybe I wouldn’t be if I could bloody see who the hells was standing over me, their grimy fucking hand on my face. I clutch Sansa’s hand and think, well, at least she’s the last thing I’ll _feel_. 

He starts singing, worst song I’ve ever bloody heard, worse than a balladeer with his balls cut off, and there’s drops of something in my eyes, stinging. Stinging to fuck.

I wait for it to sear my eyeballs, dissolve my flesh.

There’s nothing. A wee burn of pain, but something creamy and cool, too. And nothing else.

Sansa’s stopped breathing. I can feel a pulse going at her wrist.

I can’t see anything still. My world’s as before, darker than shadows. _It hasn’t worked, little bird_ , I say. She grips my hand tighter. _It will, just wait_ , she says.

We do. We wait for a long time, with that cunt standing over me, stinking rotten. I think of my sister, and how she would jump on my bed, how we both did once, breaking the frame and getting me a hiding. How she and I would look for frogs in the river, and fish, and how she seemed to be more interested in the glint of their scales than fine jewels, the gait of a fox in the woods, not its fur for a collar. I think of the first man I killed, some green squire smaller than I, whilst Tywin bloody Lannister looked on. I think of the little shit who became king, and all the things I did at his bidding, like the loyal fucking dog I was. I think of my mother.

He says something, and the other one says something back, quieter. Sansa says _I don’t know what they’re – I’ll have to get Shireen_ , and lets go of my hand.

But I don’t need to know their turgid little piss-language to understand what he meant. Might be different words, but the way they’re said is the same. He spoke the way a knight would when he knows he’s done at a tourney and wants to get out without a lance spiking through him. 

I heave myself up, let the chair crack to the floor, find the door to the hallway. _Where are you going_? she says, at the other end of the room. Out, I think, out of this fucking house, away from all of you, all of you who can see, who can see what a buggering idiot I am, what an idiot I’ll only continue to be, now there’s no fucking hope – 

***

He had been gone too long. She should have gone after him straight away, but she was too frightened, and too despairing. It hadn’t worked. The sorcerer had given a very calm shrug, a broad smile mixed with sadness, and Shireen had translated as best she could.

‘More powerful magic than him. The one that did the magic – the one who did it is the only one who can turn it back.’

Sansa wanted to scream and cry, to fly back to Dragonstone and kill Melisandre, or die trying. Instead, she sat down very carefully, and put her head in her hands for a good while. Though the sorcerer had demurred, Davos had pressed some coin on him, getting Shireen to ask for their vow of silence. They had left, light as shadows.

‘Shall I go and find him?’ Gendry said gently.

Now she understood truly why he had been fearful. It wasn’t the sorcery exactly – he’d been afraid of hope. She’d perhaps given him the tiniest shred of hope, and all for nothing.

Sansa nodded.

***

Fuck it to all the seven hells. I crash out of there, into the street, trying to go the way I’ve been before. And then I think, what does it matter if I’m careful anymore, and veer off, into my own new black path, a path with unfamilar sounds and smells, dogshit and oil and dried fish. Stumbling, bumping into people, cursing at them. Someone shoves me in the shoulder and I throw my arm out, wanting nothing better than to strangle them, and get punched in the jaw for my trouble. There are footsteps all around me, and talking - a sound like braying donkeys - and I growl and fling my hands out and they scatter. 

I go on, my hands finding a wall, keeping my fingers to it until it ends, and then my legs go a bit, and I sit, right there, on a step, my world shrunk to the size of a seed. There’s a dusting of rain, light as gnats.

I understand. She wanted me better. So did I. I just knew, more than her, how these things go. That real life isn’t like the songs, the knights getting their sight back and getting the pretty fucking milkmaid who turns out to be a princess, that real life ends in shit and piss and darkness, and that’s it. I’ve just had half my death come a little early, is all.

There’s a sound near me, and I realise my ears recognise bloody coughs now. I’d know the little one’s sigh, or Davos’ sniff, or Sansa’s – Sansa’s everything. _You can fuck right off_ , I say. _Fucking bringing them to the house_.

 _I saw their magic just as much as Sansa did_ , he says. _I’m sorry it didn’t work out_.

The rain gets a little heavier. My jaw throbs. _Think you might come back, then_? he says.

***

Sansa stood outside Sandor’s door. She’d never knocked before. But tonight was different. Gendry had returned with him and he’d gone straight up to his chamber. Shireen had taken some food up and come back down almost in tears, saying he’d been very mean to her. Sansa and Shireen had sat together, playing a game until Shireen got tired and went to bed, and then Gendry had poured her a goblet of wine, which she had drunk extremely quickly, before making him pour her another. And another.

Now she felt full of it, the sour fruit turning the inside of her skull purple. This is what men – and women – drank for fun, and for courage. It didn’t feel much like either to her. 

There was no reply. She opened the door.

It was dark, of course. He didn’t need a candle. There was an ink-blue light from the open window. Sandor was sitting by it, the thin curtain fluttering in the wind. A gentle hiss of rain outside. He turned his head slightly.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. 

He didn’t answer, biting on his thumbnail. 

He hated her. She tried again. ‘I just thought -' 

‘I know what you thought.’ His voice was as black as tar. ‘You thought that the first person who brought a coin out of his sleeve could cure the whole fucking world, and you thought it was alright to show strangers exactly where we are all holed up.’

A little rebelliousness welled up in her. ‘I’m not sorry I brought them here. I wanted to try.’ How could he not have wanted her to?

Sandor slammed his fist down on the table. ‘ _Try_. Stop trying. Stop wandering into markets unguarded and going up alleyways and talking to little cunts to try and make me see again because I’m not fucking going to. I’m – this is how I am. How I’m going to be. You’re not going to get me standing next to you in armour being able to protect you or whatever in the hells it is you want from me.’

 _That’s not what I want_ , she thought.

‘You can’t –‘ he shook his head furiously. ‘You’re not getting me back the way you want. The way I want.’

 _I want to be with you anyway_ , she thought, and took a step towards him. 

He turned away, just out of her reach, and his head tilted up slightly. He turned back, a sudden movement. ‘What do you – have you been drinking?’

‘Yes.’ _It’s what you do when you’re angry at yourself, at the world_ , she thought.

He chewed on his cheek, a long sigh coming. 

‘Please Sandor, I’m sorry. I’ll – I won’t – I’ll be careful.’ _I’ll keep looking_ , she thought. ‘Please forgive me. I’ll do - whatever you want.’

There was a tension in his shoulders then, hearing the change in her voice. ‘The hells does that mean?’ He sounded guarded.

Sansa’s head felt fuzzy and furred, like her skull was stuffed with late summer bees. ‘I’ll – I don’t know. Last night, you did – to me, so –‘ 

_I’ll give you whatever you want_ , she thought.


	30. Chapter 30

I want to take her. I want to punish her, pour my anger into her. And then that will make me no more a scrap of horseshit than those other Kingsguard cunts, who beat her bloody and laughed about it. Will make me worse. I rein myself in. Glad I’m not in my cups, even if she is. Bloody hells.

 _For the gods’ sakes, Sansa_ , I say, _don’t fucking whore yourself to me. Who do you think I am_? A dog that wants you on your back right now. Her voice is bumbly, heavy with wine. _But I thought_ – she says. Well of course I fucking do. I’m hard just thinking about it. _I - liked what you did_ , she says, _don’t you want me to_ – 

Gods. I find her hand, stand, take her towards the bed, the backs of my knees against it. Try and find her dress fastenings, and remember that she’s in some Myrish thing that is as easy to get into as a doorless castle, for all its lack. _Get this off_ , I say, a bit too fast, and her breath goes. Her elbow cricks a little. Material dropping to the floor, brushing my leg. I hear her straighten, wait. 

_Take this off_ , I say. A pause. Fingers at the hem of my shirt, and her heels lifting off the ground as it comes over my head, my arms. _And these_ , I say. The little flat splash in her throat as she swallows, and her hands, which are cool, come into my waistband, and she removes my breeches. She’s fumbling a bit, and I remember that the room’s dark, and think, well, about right too. Only fair. And then she goes for my smallclothes, without even bloody asking. 

She’s standing there, a gap between us, and I think, she’s looking right bloody at me, and what I wouldn’t give to see her face right now. Or maybe not. 

_What do you want me to do_? she says. 

She bloody stinks of wine. There’s a moment, then, where I think, I could still do this, turn her over, turn her any which way I like. I’m bigger than her. A moment which makes me think of my brother.

 _What do_ you _want to do_ , I say.

***

Sansa’s head was swimming. A pool of wine. Her belly too, that and nerves like a bees’ nest. Bees again. He was standing right in front of her. Naked. A slight tremor of terror ran through her.

She wanted so much for him to like her again, to forgive her, but she was starting to wonder if this was the right thing to do. Her mother. What would her mother say?

‘I want to – do -‘ she wasn’t very good at talking about this. She wasn’t very good at wine. She took a deep breath. ‘I want to make you happy.’

His head came down then, almost down to his chest. His warm breath on the crown of her head. It sounded like he was about to say something, many things, but not a word came out. 

Instead, Sandor put a hand out until he found her shoulder and ran his thumb over the raised bone. ‘Come here, then,’ he said. 

He sat on the bed and gently pulled her over to him, leaning back until he was lying down and she was at his side, a leg hooked between his thighs. Her heart was going to flop right out of her mouth and onto his chest at any moment, probably drowning in a puddle of wine. His fingers came lightly down her arm, over her knuckles, drawing her hand over to his crotch. His – his everything. 

He had placed her palm on his – gods, what should she call it? - manhood, which lay against his stomach, and, with his hand over the top, began moving it. Up, and down. Sansa had seen plenty of them in her time – her brothers, bathing and swimming, softer, smaller versions – and she also knew what to expect, but it didn’t make this any less strange. Part of this didn’t feel real at all, as if she was floating above them both, looking down. She enclosed her fingers round him and heard a little explosion of breath from his mouth. His ribs rose up. His fingers curled over the top of hers and clasped her around him, tighter.

She wanted to feel his warmth. She trailed the back of her other hand over his side, the slim, glazed scars on his stomach, and his chest. Sandor suddenly jerked away from her alarmingly, as if he’d been bitten by a snake, and her hand whipped back. 

Gods, she’d done something awful. ‘I’m – I’m sorry,’ she said. 

She heard him lick his lips. ‘What for?’ She was feeling limpid, dreamy, confused. ‘You can do that again if you like,’ he said.

 _Do what again_? She ran her knuckles over him, and felt the hardness of a nipple, and another flinch. Oh. He squeezed her other hand tighter, making her move faster. There was a moistness at the top of him. Sansa shifted a bit, drew her knee up, felt the softness of his balls there.

‘ _Fuck_.’ Sandor suddenly sat up, brought a hand under her back, and shunted her unceremoniously until she lay flat in the middle of the bed. 

He shoved one knee between her legs, and she thought _this is it_ , then and she thought _I really shouldn’t be doing this_ , but it didn’t happen, not quite. Sandor stayed hovering above her, grasping his cock, and she could hear the skin underneath his fingers moving. A tiny, slapping sound. He grabbed her hand and placed it underneath his again.

A dark shadow above her. Breaths coming sharply. His thigh moved up against her crotch, and she felt a wash of pleasure and pressed into him further. She brought her hand gingerly up to his nipple again and Sandor swore, several times, and she sensed his whole body clutching itself, a flooding feeling underneath her fingers, warm liquid spilling onto her belly. 

The room was spinning a little. It had gone very quiet. 

Sandor sat back on his knees, his bones creaking. ‘Gods, little bird,’ he said. 

She could hear him chewing on his cheek. He leant back, fumbled, and soft material was at her stomach as he wiped her clean. _His shirt_ , she thought. There was a dizzy little ringing in her ears. The bees were still there.

The shirt was thrown to the floor, and he was sitting there, between her legs.

‘Right, you,’ he said.

***

I lie awake with her in my arms, still smelling of sweat, of day-old milk, and of _me_. One day I’ll have all of her. Maybe soon. But that’s halfway there, and halfway’s good enough when she’s part-asleep and smelling like midnight at an inn. 

Her limbs keep twitching as she goes to sleep. _Happy_ , she’d said. I couldn’t say it. Couldn’t tell her that she’ll never make me truly happy, not like this. I’ll never get used to it, this darkness. One long season of night. 

But she’s there. _She_ is still there. 

***

It was the worse headache she’d ever had. A pain so bad that she wondered if the sorcerers had left some malingerance in the air, and it had seeped in through her hair and swelled there. Sansa lay in Sandor’s bed, hiding under the covers, shivering and feeling very ill indeed. She tried to remember everything that had happened last night – stitching together the images, the sensations, like patches of a quilt. His hand over hers. A pulsing feeling. The puddle on her stomach.

She felt proud, somehow. Proud that she’d touched him and made him shatter a little, even it had been with his help.

And afterwards, he’d touched her again, though she hadn’t been quite awake enough to really concentrate, and put his _mouth_ there, which had made her giggle uncontrollably until he’d stopped and shushed her, to no avail, and drawn her into his arms instead.

He had smoothed his hands over her in the morning, and put his fingers in her ears and her mouth and between her legs before she’d moaned, not in pleasure, but because of the axe-split of pain in the middle of her forehead. He’d grumbled a laugh at her then and gone to fetch her water, though he’d threatened wine.

Forgiven, then. Just enough.

The sun seemed high, the shadows in the room very short. She couldn’t stay in bed _all_ day, whilst Gendry worked hard at the smithy and Ser Davos made connections at the harbour. Time to get up. 

Sansa got down to the kitchen to find Ser Davos and Sandor sitting at the table together, as if they’d been playing cards, or telling stories. They were still hardly ever in each other’s sole company – for all the calling him back before the sorcerer’s failed attempt, there was still a slight mistrust between them for being on different sides of the battle at King’s Landing, and, she knew, for hers and Sandor’s relationship, which Ser Davos couldn’t seem to fathom.

There was a strange, guilty tension in the air.

‘What is it?’ she asked, putting a hand to her head.

Ser Davos glanced at Sandor, and up at Sansa. ‘I had news at the harbour. Mendrel’s been speaking to sailors. Finding out how the land lies everywhere.’

A little shard of glass spiked her stomach. Something felt very wrong. ‘Is it Stannis? Is he here?’

‘No, my lady. We’re still spared that, for now.’

Her mind raced. Sandor was looking heavy, his shoulders down, as if waiting. ‘What then? Is it – Bran and Rickon?’ Ser Davos shook his head. What, then? Oh gods. Of course. ‘Is it Robb? Has he been – defeated?’

There was a pause. ‘He has, my lady.’

All her breath seemed to leave her. Robb. Her brother, the king in the north. He’d fought so bravely, and for so long. ‘Has – is he a prisoner?’

Sandor spoke, finally. ‘Sansa, sit down.’ There was a terrible darkness to his voice, something guarded and careful.

It was worse, then. He was dead. He must be dead. She placed her hands on the edge of the table. ‘Just tell me.’


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly heftier chapter... thanks as always for reading!

She’s on her own bed, curled up, a straw pillow clutched to her stomach like a bairn. _Go away_ , she says, her voice dry and salty. I sit by her, put my hand on her hip. There’s nothing to say. What can there be, after what she’s heard? 

Her family’s been gutted, in the space of two years. At least I had a bit of time in between my sister and my father, not that it meant I’d healed any. She’s left flailing in the wind - and, now that I think about it, maybe she’s the bloody heir and all. Ay, course she is, with her younger brothers still missing, or dead most like. Gods, we’ve got the Stark heir and the Baratheon one both under one roof. 

The little one’s hanging at the door, tapping the wood. _Should I sleep somewhere else_? she whispers. _No_ , I say, getting up, putting my hands underneath Sansa, who’s limp, a sack of bones. _You sleep here. Just guide me next door_.

When I set her down, she takes a huge, angry breath in – I hear it clatter down through her ribs – and shudders. _Everyone’s dying_ , she says, through a mouth hardly open. That’s the truth of it, I think, and we all will and all. _I’m sorry, Sansa_ , I say, knowing it’s useless.

She turns on her back, flings my hand away, her voice full of asps. _I want my family_ , she says, and I wonder if she means the ones who might yet be alive, or the ones who are dead.

***

The villa was very quiet for several days. Sansa spent them curled up in bed, Sandor’s at night and her own during the day – she would crawl into her own bed as dawn broke, and wrap her arms around Shireen, and try not to wake her with her own crying. 

She would wake to find a cup of hot wine or water by her head, or a drawing by Shireen of something she’d seen that day. Flowers with small, purple petals, or soldiers dressed in gold, or a lady in a dress borded with bright red beads. She could hear Sandor and Gendry training outside with swords – the steel ringing now, rather than wood – and their voices, low.

Sandor would come in to see her, and sit by her hip as he had done that first evening, and not say anything. She was glad he didn’t. There was truly nothing to say. She simply wallowed in her memories of them all, her family, and their words and smiles mixed up into one, a sickly stew she gorged on until she cried herself to sleep again. Her mother. Robb. Arya. And she’d half-wake to find Sandor carrying her next door. He didn’t touch her, except to fold his arms around her, and press his mouth to the back of her head.

***

 _You need to eat, little bird_ , I say to her for the third day running. I can’t see her grief, but I can hear it, in her scratched-out voice, and I can hear her stomach going, too. She might not want it, but her body bloody does. I can smell it too – she hasn’t washed since she heard, and she’s stewing in the same dress she’s had on the whole time.

 _No_ , she says. There’s a plate of hot food Gendry had brought up from a stall by the bed. Davos has been off for a day with his ship and crew taking lace and glass to Tyrosh. _No point in starving yourself_ , I say. _It won’t bring them back. No_ , she hisses at me, and I think, how do I get her out of this? And I know the answer, really. That I can’t, that nothing can but slow, slow time, seasons of it. And I say, _alright Sansa, all the more for me then_ , and go to find the plate with my fingers, hoping me chomping away right by her ear might madden her enough into grabbing it off me, and then the door thuds gently into the wall.

 _There’s a man in the house_ , whispers the little one.

***

Sansa’s legs hardly worked. She’d only got up to use the chamber pot, which always seemed to have been cleared away whenever she next looked. But now she had to move. Sandor was already up and treading towards the door, his fingers along the wall, his hand moving to the hilt of his sword. 

‘Sandor,’ she whispered. Perhaps the sorcerers had come back, with new bottles and vials.

‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘I need you.’

She stood up, and went to his elbow. 

‘Stay here,’ he said to Shireen in a low, very quiet voice, ‘and shut the door. Hide under the bed.’

As Sansa led Sandor down the stairs, with him just touching her elbow, she had a faint, dazed memory of being under his bed, a very long time ago. They crept down, shoeless, and she was aware that her heart was thumping more loudly than anything, a stone hurled repeatedly against a wall.

She couldn’t hear anything. The house was eerily quiet, with both Gendry and Davos out. Maybe Shireen had imagined it, or was playing a trick.

Sandor reached the bottom of the steps, the end of a short corridor that led to the front door. It was open, a silvery-pale light in one thin, diagonal slice across the floor. He stopped, and stood very straight, listening, his fingers curled around his sword. She feel the energy and concentration coursing through him.

He elbowed her gently and gave the merest of nods towards the kitchen. She knew that normally, before Dragonstone, he would never have allowed her to come with him – that he would have commanded her to go under the bed with Shireen – but without his sight, he needed her. She gripped his elbow and helped steer him, feeling a lump swelling in her throat.

Sandor paused at the doorway, for a tiny moment, then turned the corner. Everything happened very fast. A man was there – his back to them, looking through the window. Tall, slight. Brown and grey clothes and armour. He whipped round as they came in, and moved, hardly without making a noise it seemed, round the table, his sword raised. 

‘Right! Right, around the table!’ Sansa shouted.

In one heart-stopping movement, Sandor had let go of her, lifted his sword and lunged, a strange, sideways movement that hit the man in his chest armour. The metal rang loudly. The man made a swift, jerking movement and brought his sword towards Sandor’s arm. Sandor’s sword moved back and was suddenly in the man’s shoulder, slicing through. The man groaned and staggered backwards, his sword clattering to the ground. Sandor kicked it away, stumbled, and put a foot on the man’s chest. Sansa could see the armour strain under the weight of him.

The point of Sandor’s sword dragged up the man’s chest armour and to his neck.

‘Mercy,’ choked the man. 

Sandor rammed his sword into the man’s neck, and his mouth bubbled red.

Sansa stood, open-mouthed, her mind swimming. ‘How did you do that?’ she whispered.

There was a slick sound as his sword came back out. Sandor sniffed. ‘Still got ears.’

***

My ears are my main weapons, suddenly. The trace of a boot on stone from the kitchen is enough to tell me someone’s there, and it’s not going to be the smuggler or the boy. I have to use everything I’ve got, every scrap of sound as a clue, and Sansa to help me get there. She’s pressing on my elbow, just enough. I’ve never fought this way, so damned still.

We’re there, in the kitchen, and I know he’s coming towards me, before Sansa shouts that is, and that there’s a sword in the air, because I know what it sounds like as much as what it looks like, since the yard-training. I hear the metal hiss in the air, and mine hisses too, snakes from a basket. I miss him first time, but get him the second, just as he does too, a sweet fucking sting in my forearm.

He’s not much of a fighter, thank fuck, and he’s on the floor, and my ears and my sword and my foot’s telling me everything I need to know, and I finish him. My blood’s up. A fucking intruder in this house, where Sansa is, where the little one bloody is and all.

A warmth spreads in the crease of my elbow. _You’re hurt_ , says Sansa, like she’s coming out of a dream. _Ay, maybe_ , I say, dropping my sword, putting a hand to it. _I’ll be_ \- 

And suddenly I know something’s wrong again. A tiny sound from her throat, and a hum from high, closed lips. A shuffling of clothes and boots.

There’s someone else here.

I freeze. I didn’t hear him, and now he’s there, and he has Sansa, somehow. He’s not fucking saying anything, or moving, and I am beaten this way. He’s got me. Sword’s somewhere by my feet.

They’re moving, backwards, away. I panic, crouch to the floor for my steel, fumble, catch my palm on the blade as I feel for the hilt. I’m up, and feeling for the table, the door. 

I follow the sound she’s making, gull-cries far out to sea, and they’re moving fast, and I’m stumbling, trying to find the wall, wanting to move fast but not able to for losing the sound.

It’s quiet again, and I think fuck, they can’t have gone, he can’t have got her out, not yet, I’d have heard the door – wouldn’t I? And I stand, dead still, blood coming from my elbow, waiting for my ears to answer me, every bone and sinew in me wanting to just run forward, my sword out.

And then there’s a rush, feet and gulls and a scrape and the door and something I don’t understand, a crunch and a soft grunt, someone on the floor. 

And a sob. Sansa.

***

Sansa had felt cold metal against her throat at the same time as a hot hand had come over her mouth, dragging her slightly backwards. And she had seen the way Sandor’s body had altered, from fierceness to tension and fear. Fear for her. She had watched him and the man behind her had begun to walk backwards, taking her with him, back through the kitchen door to the hallway. His mouth had dropped and he had fallen to the ground to find his sword, and knocked into the table, and the wall, as he’d tried to find his way towards them, his slow, measured way of moving forgotten.

The man had smelt of sweat and something metallic, like copper. She’d wanted to bite him but his hand was clamped tightly over her mouth, his thumb pressing into her cheekbone. She waited for the sharp edge of the dagger to press into her skin.

As they’d neared the door, Sandor had come crashing out, and the man had stopped, his other hand gripping her round the waist, his hand tightening. The tip of the blade had dug against her neck, and then she hadn’t dared make another sound.

And suddenly there’d been someone else behind them both, the door swinging open, and she had felt the man loosen like a puppet whose strings have been cut, crumpling behind him and falling, the dagger falling too.

There in the doorway, was Gendry, with a pot still held high in his hand.

***

Me and the boy move him to the kitchen, and the boy gets his armour off, ties him to a chair. He wakes up with the point of the boy’s sword in his gut, right where I’ve told him to put it.

 _Who are you_ , I say, by his side. The man spits. I’m near enough to whack him, use my fist on his ear, get him first time. He spits again then, a different sort of sound. _No point in that_ , I say, _unless you want to be on the street with your brains dribbling out of your ears. Who sent you_?

A pause. _You should answer him_ , says the boy. When the man does speak, his voice is rough and high. _The Queen Regent_ , he says.

A sound from Sansa in the corner. Not the sorcerers, then, as I’d thought. Fuck, I’d almost forgotten about Cersei. The golden bloody queen, mother of her brother’s children, every drop of blood pumping behind those metal corsets rich as Dornish wine with anger and want of power. Well, I did steal Sansa away, about a hundred years ago.

 _How does she know we’re here_? I say. _She doesn’t_ , says the man. _Ravens were sent. Perhaps to every Free City_. He spat again, and gave a sort of shudder. _A bounty for anyone who finds her_. 

I’m feeling a bit away with the children of the forest with this sword-wound, though there’s something I like about the pain. It’s familiar. _How did you know it was her_? I say, thinking, you’d have to have lived in the Red Keep to recognise her with short black hair, and he says, _the messages said she’d be with a big man with half his face burnt_ and I think, fuck, I bloody gave her away. I’d let the little one take me outside. They probably followed us home, and I didn’t see a bloody thing. 

Not much to be done with him. He knows it too – I can smell it, his resignation, a stench stronger than fear – the knowledge that his death is coming. _Alright_ , I say to Gendry. _What_? he says. _Time to end him_ , I say. 

A pause. _Me_? he says. _You’re the one with a sword at his chest_ , I say. Another pause. _Can’t you_ – and I know what he wants to say. I wait. I hear the boy swallow, and a gurgle rattle right down into his gut. He swallows again. 

The man shifts, says to me, _look, if someone’s going to bloody do it, maybe it had better_ – and then I hear it, the slide of metal into softness, and sounds like a sink draining.

***

Two dead men in the house. Sandor had told Gendry to find a barrow, and he had come back with one so small that Sandor, feeling it in the front yard, had growled and said you couldn’t get two dead _dogs_ in there, let along two men. They had wrapped the first in sheets and there had been a horrible cracking sound as Sandor had hefted him in, bending the man’s legs to make him fit. _Breaking_ his legs. Gendry had disappeared with it. 

Sansa was sitting on the bottom step in the hallway, feeling faint. Her head felt furrowed, like a horse and plough had gone methodically from ear to ear, over and over. 

‘Men came into our house,’ she said, her voice not quite her own.

‘They did,’ said Sandor, leaning his back on the closed front door. ‘And maybe they’ll come again.’

Her insides were loosed and floating about behind her ribs. When would it end? They would always be hunted, by someone. She was wanted – alive by some, dead by others by now, she expected. She would never be safe, not truly. None of them would – 

She looked up. ‘We forgot about Shireen,’ she said.

***

I’m sitting at the table. They come in, and there’s a bloody White Walker shriek from the little one. My toes are digging into the leg of the other man, and I know from the slip of the floor that there’s blood everywhere. Probably should have wrapped him up before she came downstairs.

But seems it's not that. I feel the little un's hand on my arm, light, coming off again quick. _You’re hurt_ , she says, and starts blubbing like a bloody broken fountain. _Tell me what to do_ , says Sansa, whose voice sounds a little more like her own, a bit of wolf in it. 

I instruct her to find her needle – she’s had one to stitch up clothes, I know – and hand me a sheet. The feeling’s going in my arm now and I can’t loose the threads, so get her to. Get her to rip part of it for a bandage, pick threads to stitch it. Wash it first.

Her fingers are like insects. I hear her breath come in, sharp, as she puts the needle in first time, and then she goes dead quiet, concentrating. The little ‘un is still yowling. _Maybe you should go outside_ , I say to her. _I don’t want you to be hurt_ , she says, the last word long and bumping like it’s a ball falling down stairs. _It’s alright, little fish, takes more than this to kill me_ , I say. She wails. Gods.

Tiny sharp wasp-bites all around the inside of my elbow and Sansa ties it up. I touch it, careful. _You’ve done well, there_ , I say. _My septa always said I was good at needlework_ , she says in a flat voice, wrapping my palm up too. My head’s gone a bit, like the rain’s come in. I bid her get me some wine, and find some in my hand, hear her drinking a bit too.

The little un’s cries have mouthfuls of Sansa’s dress in them now, and Sansa’s shushing her, and I think, thank the gods, can’t bloody bear her going on like that, when I start hearing it from Sansa too. A low sound, from deep down in her chest, and not for me, I think. For everyone else she knows. Everyone who’s gone. 

They’re both bawling. I pray to the gods for the boy to come back soon so I can break a few more bones.

***

‘I’ve made you something.’

Gendry looked up from the stone step in the yard, where he was sharpening his sword. Sansa was holding out a small, sweet bun, dusted with dark brown sugar. She’d found her appetite again, had been ravenous in fact, and eaten almost everything she could find in the house, before going out to fetch more for everyone.

He pretended to frown at it. 

She dropped her shoulder. ‘It’s not horrible. Shireen’s had one.’

He grinned at her. ‘My thanks, then.’ He continued to look at her sidelong, more pensively.

Sansa sat next to him. His sword caught a flash of late afternoon sunshine. There wasn’t a trace of blood on there now. ‘I know what you’ve been doing.’

Gendry spoke through a mouthful of bread. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You weren’t training for yourself. You’ve been training Sandor.’

Gendry looked studiedly blank. ‘Don’t know what you mean.’

‘Yes, you do. You’ve been helping him learn. How to do it without his eyes.’

He looked at the floor and then up at her with one eye scrunched up. ‘Been helpful for the both of us, then. Not bad, this.’ He stuffed the rest of the bun in his mouth. ‘You didn’t really make it, did you?’

She shoved him in the arm and he smiled at her. ‘Are you alright, though? Really? You – killed a man.’ Killed a man, and dumped two corpses in – she didn’t even know where. She didn’t want to think about it.

Gendry grimaced into the sunshine. ‘Not my first.’ He swallowed his last mouthful. ‘Killed some before. With - Arya.’ His face fell.

Sansa’s heart plunged. She knew he hadn’t told her everything, before, at Dragonstone, or even since then, when she’d pressed him for more details, any stories about their time together. She knew from Melisandre’s words, in the corridor. About Arya’s darkness. What had she become, before she had found her mother, Robb? It didn’t matter any more. Whatever she had become, she was no more. None of them were. It was just her, and everyone here. 

‘Are you alright?’ Gendry said very quietly, licking a final finger clean. He clasped his fingers on top of his knees and his shoulders came down. ‘I’m sorry, Sansa. About your family. Arya was -’ He looked up to the sky. 'I never met anyone else like her.'

Sansa rested her head on his shoulder and they sat there together, on the step, clouds rushing over like a great flock of calm, white birds.

This was her family now.


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For mrm1 (who leaves me lovely comments about this story over on another site...)

I sit out the eve in bed, my arm throbbing like fucking mad. I’ve had worse, but it bloody stings. Wine helps fog my skull up a bit.

I think on us here. People coming in, attacking us – it’s like I said, they’re sure not to be the last. If it’s not Cersei’s sellswords, it’ll be Stannis. The Spider’s spies are probably lurking somewhere. Probably living in the walls. And that’s without knowing who the hells else is dangerous here on Essos. Wasn’t there some dragongirl somewhere? We’re vulnerable wherever we bloody go. 

The door opens, and she’s standing there. A rustle, and she slides in. I put my hand out – the one that isn’t bandaged up. Not a stitch on her. She’s had a wash, too – smells a damned sight better than she’s done for these last days.

Breath on my nose, though she’s not touching me. _I’m ready now_ , she says. There’s a lick of wind in the shutters. _Ready for what_? I say, though I know what she means. There’s enough weight in her voice, cold and heavy as soapstone, for me to understand.

 _Ready to give you my maidenhood_ , she says. Seven hells. The breath goes through my nose like a horse on a cold day. If she does this – if I do this – _You can’t take it back_ , I say, slow.

I hear her turn onto her back, voice a little away from me. _I know that_ , she says. Soapstone again. I’ve a pain in my chest like my brother has punched me there. And my cock’s up, sure as bloody morn follows night. _Not – not while you’re like this_ , I say. _Not while you’re grieving_. My mouth’s working the way it should, even if the rest of me isn’t.

Her face turns on the pillow. _I’ll always be grieving_ , she says.

***

Sandor’s lips made a dry sound as he opened them just a little. He seemed to be listening for something, far beyond the walls of his chamber. Then he took a big breath in – his ribs and chest making the covers move – and put his hand out to her. 

She could feel his manhood against her hipbone, hard as anything. His lips found her neck, and he kissed her there, just once. Sansa was sure he wanted to say something else – his breaths kept stopping and starting - but instead, his hand slid over her back, her bottom, and straight between her legs, shifting her upwards a bit. She hooked a leg over his thigh to let him touch her. She didn’t really care any more what happened. Everyone was dead. Everyone except him, and the others under this roof. 

He was her family.

***

Gods. She’s bloody letting me. Only so many times I can act the bloody septon with her right there. It’s all I want. Though my arm is fucking killing me.

I keep my fingers inside her for a bit. She’s slippery, like wet flowers underfoot, and the thought of getting inside her properly is more than I can - I pull her underneath me, roll onto her, stop. _You know it’ll hurt_ , I say, hating the words. 

I know it well enough, though I’ve never done this before – taken a girl’s maidenhood. What a stupid bloody word, like something from a song, wrapping up what’s skin and blood and pain in feathers and silk, trying to make the lasses feel better about it.

Had one or two Fleabottom brothelkeepers try and weasel more coin out of me, saying the girls were starched as new laundry, unbroken as fresh eggs, but I never wanted to pay any more for that, even if they hadn’t been lying through their teeth. Never gone for it much myself. Makes me queasy. I always preferred the ones who knew what they were doing, didn’t pretend, just turned around like they knew I wanted and let me get on with it. 

There was one girl, years ago, in King’s Landing, when I was still green enough to believe her, who said she didn’t mind the scars. A maid for some visiting lady from Dorne. Liked a bit of rough and tumble, she said. And she did, thrice, but she didn’t bloody mind telling me what she wanted either, before she went off and fucked some other guard or five.

Sansa. Sansa is none of those girls. She’s the most frightened thing I’ve ever lain with, but at least she shows that she is, doesn’t pretend. She makes me want to try and do it right. 

She doesn’t move a damned muscle. _I know _, she says.__

*** 

Sandor put his hand underneath her bottom and pulled her down towards him, kneeling between her legs and gently tugging her knees apart. He grasped himself and felt for her, and – _there_. Slowly he pushed himself inside her, and she wondered what it felt like to have a sword slice through you, as Gendry had done to that man. Whether it would feel like you were cheese, or slow-cooked meat. Whether the pain would be just there, where the sword had entered, or everywhere, in your whole body. Flooding, warm.

Sandor slid out again and further in, half-kneeling. It was like he was very far away and it was like he was right inside her, all of him, tucked up against every inch of her skin, from her feet to her ears. She had only had one glass of wine tonight. Everything still felt sticky. 

Sandor leant down, a slight grimace on his face as his bandaged arm came onto the bed next to her. She let out a small sound, something between a gasp and a whimper. 

He stilled. ‘Does it hurt?’ he said, very low, like his voice was buried underneath the floorboards, underneath the foundations of the house. 

It didn’t matter. It was better to have pain there, from him, than the dug-out clefts in her heart, her stomach, her head. ‘Yes,’ she said. 

She put a hand on his hip, and let him move again. 

*** 

I make it quick, though I know I shouldn’t even have gone that far. I felt her break, heard her breaths come, an abyss between each one. My arm is bloody hurting worse than all the seven hells, but maybe that’s as it should be. She feels better than any girl I’d ever had before. She feels better than in all my dreams of her. She feels beautiful. 

I come out, and she’s dead quiet. Wipe myself off a bit. _There’s blood on your hand_ , she says, not much more than a whisper, and I wonder if my stitches have come away, before I realise what she means. I sling on some clothes, get some water from downstairs, crashing about – if the whole house didn’t yet know what we were doing, they bloody do now – bring it up and wash her. 

I put my fingers on the inside of her thigh. _Do you want me to_ – I say. _No thank you_ , she says, polite, as if I’ve just asked her to fucking dance. 

She turns round so her back’s against my chest, and I put my arm over her and my nose in her hair, which smells of herbs. _It’ll be better next time_ , I say, and she bursts into tears. 

*** 

There’s a dry, raw pain inside her. It had been so very strange, though she hadn’t minded. The way the hair between their legs rubbed together. His hand on her breast. A little gush of liquid, right up in her belly. 

But she couldn’t help crying. Not for that, never for that, but for her family. She felt so empty and the space Sandor had left was just another hollow in her. 

He hadn’t seemed to mind her crying all over him. In fact, his limbs had begun to loosen, and Sansa felt a tinge of anger at how he could go to sleep when she was so upset. But only a little one. He was everything she had. 

‘You’re the Stark heir, you know,’ he said, half asleep, a mumble. 

That word. It triggered a flickerbook of thoughts – snow, great-backed hills, furs, her father’s hands, her mother brushing her hair, Arya on horseback, Bran and Summer, all of the wolves, her brothers. 

She was. She was a Stark. She would go on being a Stark. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone as always for reading and commenting!


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Putting this one up now, even though it probably still needs an edit, due to EXTREME TRAUMA OF SEASON FOUR EPISODE TEN and feeling extremely blubsome.
> 
> For Cassiopaya, for one little idea that went in here...

The next days passed quietly. Sansa kept mostly to the house, making herself as busy as she could, washing clothes and bedsheets, working out how to cook better stews, cleaning. She thought idly of the maidservants who had done this work at Winterfell, at King’s Landing, and how much she’d hardly ever noticed that they were there. Now she realised how much work there had always been to do, and how little she’d thought of it. If she ever had maidservants again, she would give them extra coin, more time to themselves, and as many gracious thanks as she could without being embarrassing. 

But she didn’t mind. If she cleaned – the floors, the walls, the furniture – she could fill the emptiness in her mind with lemon and hot water and oil of pine and suds, not the faces of her family. She hadn’t known how they died, only that they had, and by the Freys and Lord Bolton, men who had sworn themselves to her father. It wouldn’t have been an easy death for her mother, or Robb, or Arya. If there was such a thing. If she ever got home, she thought, she would kill all of them. 

‘Sandor, you’re not saying it right.’

Occasionally, as she was today, she would sit out in the yard, warming her shoulders. Sandor and Shireen were both with her today, and Shireen was doing her very best to teach Sandor some Myrish.

‘I’m not saying it right because it’s a stupid bloody language,’ he said, folding his arms. 

‘It’s not. It’s nice. It’s just got more tongue-sounds in it than ours.’ Shireen clicked her tongue like a horse. ‘It’s better than High Valerian. That’s all rubbed up the wrong way.’ Sandor grunted. ‘You have to learn it, then you can talk to people.’

‘Why the hells would I want to talk to any of those oily cunts?’ he said.

Shireen tilted her face up into the sun and closed her eyes. ‘You’re very rude.’

‘You’re very annoying.’

Shireen made a small outward breath of frustration and disappeared inside. 

‘She’s a bloody menace,’ Sandor said. ‘If she’s ever queen I’m moving to the other side of Essos.’ He put his hand out onto the bench, grimacing slightly. His arm was causing him pain, even though he didn't ever mention it.

Sansa placed her hand on top. It was walnut-wrinkled from all the washing she’d done. ‘How do you think they died?’ she said.

Sandor went very still, the curl of his half-smile disappearing. ‘Don’t think about that.’

‘Do you think they were beheaded? Or just stabbed, or –‘

‘Sansa.’

‘Do you think they hurt Arya? I mean, before? Do you think they raped her?’

He clamped his lips shut and she heard a breath crash down inside him like the wave on the prow of a boat. His chin tipped to his chest and up again. ‘It’s not going to make anything any better, you thinking like that. You have to stop.’

‘I can’t,’ she said, her voice tight. 

‘Try,’ he said.

‘I can’t. You wouldn’t know. How would you know?’

A large black and white bird streaked overhead, the sound making him glance upwards. ‘I know plenty.’ He removed his hand. ‘I’m not saying it’s the same, but I do.’

And there, in the sun-dappled yard, he told her about his family, and everything he’d lost.

***

It’s hard going, these next days. Sansa’s bleak with grief. She turns herself inside out with tears, makes herself a bloody housemaid, sits quiet a lot, picking at her nails. I haven’t lain with her again, not properly. She seems lifeless, like someone picked a little hole in her and drained the blood out slowly, just enough left in there to keep her going. I’ve tried, a bit, but I keep thinking she’s going to cry again, or bite my bloody balls off.

The little ‘un is in my face all the time, shoving Myrish words in my ears, reading to me. Her books about kings and dragons and not too many fair princesses, thank the gods. I make her go over all the Houses and how they link together, and tell her about the battles - some I’ve been in - putting plenty of gore in there to make her squeal. The reading gives me something to do at least, apart from the training, and the slow learning of walls and streets outside. I don’t like it much, being out in the open – feel like I’m a bloody walking sigil flag for us all – but it needs to be done. Davos will talk about moving on when he’s back, I’m sure of that, and mayhaps we should, but we’ve had no more trouble, for now at least.

***

‘What are you doing?’ Sansa said.

The morning light was pooling on the walls, making them the colour of buttercream. 

Sandor was making strange clicking sounds with his tongue, and in his throat. ‘They help me see, I think,’ he said. 

Sansa wondered if Sandor had gone slightly mad in the heat. ‘See?’

He sniffed. ‘They sound different depending on where I am,’ he said. ‘I can tell how far away things are – walls and that.’ He clicked softly twice more.

Sansa put her hand flat on his chest. The streets outside, the Myrish even though he pretended he hated it. Every day he seemed to learning something new, and she felt a small burn of pride in her stomach for him. After he’d told her about his sister, his father, and the mother he hardly remembered, she’d felt terrible. Guilty, and selfish. Everyone suffered loss. Not just her. 

‘Can you tell how far away I am?’ she said.

‘Don’t need to make any noise for that,’ he said, pulling her towards him. He planted a kiss on her forehead.

She was getting better, slowly. She knew she had to go on, had to go on looking after everyone, being a Stark. She also knew that Sandor wanted her again. He would run his hands over her, stop, and sigh very low in her ear, as if he was telling himself off. He was so careful around her, like she was a bit of blown glass, and would smash at any minute. 

She did want to try again. Hopefully without crying all over him afterwards. She cared for him more than anything. This was all that was left. Even though it had hurt, there had been something desperately intimate about them lying together. She couldn’t imagine being that way with a single other person. If he hadn’t taken her away, helped her escape, she would had to have done that with Lord Tyrion. With the Imp. She felt that familiar flood of guilt at everything that had happened since, and of gratitude.

***

She comes up to me, the little fish. _I’ve made you something_ , she says, and something is put in my hand. Big, flat-bottomed, with raised bits, soggy. _What the hells is this, then_? I say. Her foot kicking the bench. _It’s a map_ , she says. _Of our house and the streets around it_. She grabs my hand, uncurls my forefinger and draws it on top of a little square lump, telling me that here was us, and dragging my hand over over bits of it. 

_How did you make this_? I say, not knowing what else to bloody say. _Flour and water and paper_ , she says. _It’s probably still a bit wet, but it should dry. Hopefully. It’s only the nearest streets, otherwise it would have got too big. But I can make other ones_ \- 

She keeps going, but I’ve stopped listening, tracing the streets – some bigger, some smaller, my finger getting sticky. No one’s made me anything before. Not in my life.

Later, she’s reading to me. I’ve got my arms folded, head back against the wall, sun on my face. Hot wind slapping me about. God knows how bloody dark I am now. I’ll look like one of these Myrish idiots soon enough. I wonder how many freckles Sansa’s got on her nose now. If her shoulders are spice-coloured.

A little cough, from Sansa at the doorway. I hear her fingers scratching at the wood frame. _I thought I would go out_ , she says. She hasn’t been outside, not properly, since news of her family. I’ve probably know more routes through these bloody dusty streets than she does. Probably. 

_Will you both come_? she says.

***

It felt good to be out of the house. To smell the herbs on the air, to have people chattering around her. To walk with Sandor, leading him by the arm - or him leading her, she couldn’t quite tell - while Shireen bounded on ahead. Sansa tried not to look on every person as a threat, not to interpret their glances as anything other than curiosity at Sandor’s size, or his glassy eyes or burns, or Shireen’s cowl-covered face. 

She wondered if she needed to start thinking about finding allies here, people who really could protect them somehow. It seemed that the messages from Cersei had gone everywhere, and those men might not have sent a message back. But she wasn’t to know. Would the magisters look kindly on her and Shireen, support their cause? What was their cause? She didn’t know what her purpose in life was any more. Before it had been clear: be a princess, learn to dance, sew, hold yourself like a lady, be married, be queen – all those things seemed ridiculous now. Her whole family had disappeared, crumpled in a fist. Was she supposed to go charging back over to Westeros, claiming Winterfell? She couldn’t see it. 

After visiting Gendry in the smithy – he was pleased, if a little surprised, to see them, though kept his head down after his master shouted fiercely at him - the three of them went towards the harbour, passing the blown-glass stalls and the rows of sugar-sweets, which had their own glassy sheen.

There was a commotion up ahead. A man was in front of Shireen, shouting at her. She stood stock still, clearly astonished, or terrified. The man had his hands raised up high, and suddenly made a swift movement.

He wrenched Shireen’s shawl off her head.

***

Noise in front. Sansa grips me tighter, pulls me up to it, and I think, well, I might have been able to kill a man in the house, but most of that was down to pure luck. I’ve no fucking chance out here, this many people about. But it’s not what I think.

The little un’s crying a bit, little stab-sobs. Sansa leaves me and bends down to her. _What the hells is it, girl_? I say. She speaks, but in bits, like her words are being shredded up in front of her. _He – he said I was – a – a witch_ , she says, snivelling. He said _I’m – I’m cursed, that I’m going to bring bad luck on everyone. Because of my_ – 

There’s a man babbling right in front of me, smallish, his voice coming up at me. I feel a finger bloody jab my in the chest, his words spewing out like vomit. I take a step back. _What’s he fucking saying_? I say. The little fish says, _he says you’re cursed too, you and your - daughter. He thinks you’re my father_ – 

Cursed. I am fucking cursed, but my face is old bloody news. I step forward again, and he doesn’t bloody move. Sansa says my name, unsure, and I put my hand out, find the material of his shirt, lift him up. He goes quiet then. _You say she’s cursed again and I’ll fucking bite both your ears off_ , I say. _Translate that_ , I say to the little one.

She doesn’t. The man speaks quietly, high, like someone’s wrenching his voice, and I try not to think about headbutting him, or kicking him in the balls, or slicing him in two. Little shit. I take it for an apology and lower him. _Fucking get_ , I say. _All of the fucking lot of you_ , I say, more loudly, my best growl. Feet, scattering. Voices, quieter, murmuring. 

_Come on, you_ , I say. A few little sniffs. _Shireen_ , I say, _come here_. And I put my hand out.

***

Sandor had done just enough to dispel the strange, gabbling man and the onlookers. People were so superstitious here. Superstitious, and nosy, and rude. Sansa was proud that he’d not punched anyone, or tried to use his sword. It wouldn’t have done any good.

And he had taken Shireen’s hand – and called her by name, which she was sure that she had never heard before – and strode off, looking almost as if he could see, though she knew Shireen was leading him, really. Sansa’s heart had clunked just a little, then, seeing the two of them.

They sat at the harbour, eating curious, twisted sugar-breads and watching Sandor next to Davos’ boat as he talked to Averey and Mendrel. Averey had turned as brown as burnt parchment, and Mendrel seemed to have lost another tooth or two. They had returned with Ser Davos from Tyrosh, bringing back precious stones and brandy. Kelvin had stayed on Tyrosh for the meanwhile, on a whaler’s ship. 

Ser Davos had dashed over to them after Sandor had filled him in on the attack in the house. 

‘My ladies,’ he’d said, after hoisting Shireen up onto his shoulder and whirling her about. ‘Are you both well?’ His look at Sansa had said much more. A deep understanding of what it was to lose your kin. A concern.

‘We’re well enough,’ Sansa had replied, with a careful smile. ‘We’ve all looked after each other.’ Ser Davos had kissed her gently on the cheek and gone back to the ship, getting Sandor to help lift boxes and barrels down.

Sansa squinted into the sun to watch Sandor. He stood tall, partly-armoured in the mail that Gendry had found for him, his sword glinting in the sun. If someone took a quick glance, they certainly wouldn’t know he was blind, and he cut the same imposing figure that he used to back at King’s Landing. His shoulders were so broad. His back was - 

‘Are you and Sandor married now?’

Sansa almost fell off the wall. She hardly knew what to say. She opened her mouth, and shut it again. 

Shireen was staring at her with one eye shut, kicking her legs against the stone. ‘I mean, I know you’re not, but – you sort of are, aren’t you? With – at night-time?’

Flames had suddenly appeared from behind Sansa and engulfed her head. It was the only way to explain the crippling burn she had on both cheeks. She glanced over to him again. ‘I don’t know. We’re not, but –‘

We should be. They were sleeping together, sharing a bed, right next door to Shireen, who was a highborn princess and should be taught the right ways of everything. Sansa should be like a septa to her, not just a sister, or a friend. And septas didn’t sleep with men at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, still feeling extremely blubsome. Sobsobsobsobsobsob. All soothing comments extremely welcome...


	34. Chapter 34

She’s definitely a little better. There’s a bit of a summer breeze in her voice for the first time in days and days, and she hangs on my arm all the way home from the harbour, her other hand tucked in too. And the little ‘un hangs onto my other hand – can’t bloody shake her off it after that run-in in the market, she’s like one of the red bitch’s leeches, and I get an earful from both of them, a load of girl-words rattling around my skull. But I don’t mind, except to remind them occasionally that they’re my eyes and to bloody well look about them, and behind us, to check for sellswords, spies, worse.

Her cooking’s got better too. Lamb and damson stew. Bread that hasn’t burnt. She sits very close, and strokes my knuckles a bit, and I swear I can smell her dampness. The mossiness between her legs. It’s not just the lamb.

***

She had to do it. 

Any moment the world could change, tip upside down and shake them about. Everyone would die, at some point. She had to ask him.

Night. They had come upstairs, Sansa putting all the candles out and bringing a stub of one to his room. To their room. She had helped Sandor remove his mailshirt, he grumbling about how bloody hot he was in it. There was a sheen of sweat on his chest. Sansa put her hand flat on his stomach, and higher up, where his heart was. A long, sure thump. 

All she had to do was ask.

Sandor took her arm by the wrist, hesitant, with that way of standing he often did now - head to the side slightly, listening. Very carefully, he lifted her arm up so that it stretched above her, and turned her round so that her back was against the wall. Still holding her hand high, he leaned down and put his mouth on her neck. Sansa’s legs went to milk and cream and fruit jelly. He ran his lips up to her ear, and she tried very hard to think what to say.

‘I have to ask you something,’ she whispered.

Sandor put his other hand behind her neck, and pressed his whole frame right up against her, his manhood hard against the top of her hip. Fruit jelly again. He kissed her, firmly, and when she opened her mouth, brought his tongue between her teeth. 

She had to concentrate. ‘Sandor,’ she said, around his tongue.

‘Ay,’ he said, not really listening.

‘I have to ask you something important.’

‘Alright, then,’ he said, between kisses, drawing her hip high around him so that she was pinned against the wall. Gods. It was really good. 

‘Will you – do you want to –‘

‘Ay,’ he breathed into her mouth, without hesitation.

Sansa froze. She drew back, touched his face. ‘Really? You –‘

His hand slid down her raised arm. ‘Ay. Of course.’

Her heart flooded with warmth. Sandor was kissing her again, more passionately, and his hands working their way up under dress, thumbs amongst her smallclothes. She couldn’t quite believe it had been that easy. She’d expected confusion, and maybe anger, and – Sandor had brought down one of the shoulders of her dress and had a hand at the waistband of his breeches.

‘Do you really want to? You’re not just, I don’t know, you don’t just have to say it because you think I –‘ Sandor breathed a laugh into her ear, began to shift out of his breeches. ‘I don’t know where we might go, or what we might do, after this, but –‘

He stopped, his hips between her thighs. ‘What do you mean?’ he said, more slowly, less air in his voice.

Sansa felt less certain. ‘I mean, I don’t know what might happen, but I still want to, I just wasn’t sure if you would.’

Sandor’s eyes fell just to the side of her head. ‘Would what?’

She swallowed. The wall felt cold against her shoulder blades. ‘Want to marry me.’

He went completely still, as if listening for prey. Outside, a lone gull cried, an arcing cry like little curving stabs. Her hands were resting lightly on his ribs. She could feel his heart still, pounding distantly. 

Very slowly, Sandor let her leg fall and backed away a step, pulling his breeches back up. ‘What in seven hells are you talking about?’

There was a keen, spreading sensation in her throat. Somehow, she’d got this terribly wrong. ‘What were you talking about?’ she said slowly.

He didn’t answer, and suddenly she knew. He had just thought she was talking about – that. Sansa had never felt more stupid. Of course. Of course that’s what he had thought. He was a man. That was all he wanted. And she was a silly, flighty girl with idiot notions.

‘Oh,’ she said.

***

A horsefly’s got in her ear. It’s got in her ear, and laid eggs next to her skull, and maggots are feasting on her brain. It’s the only way she could have got to thinking like that. 

She’d said the perfect words and I’d said of course, thinking there’s nothing in this whole dark world I’d rather do more than be inside you again, you beautiful bloody girl, and I’d got to it, hand on my breeches, and then she’d started talking some more, and I was only half-listening but she was not quite making sense and something in me told me this wasn’t quite right and I stopped. And then she’d said what she had really meant and my face nearly fell off in shock.

 _Marry me_.

Half of me’s rueing over her not meaning that she wanted my cock in her again, finally, and the other half’s shouting ‘what in the hells?’ _Sansa_ , I say. _You’re talking madness_. I hear her fold her arms, and when she speaks I know that she’s turned her head away, too. 

_You thought I wanted you to_ – she says. _Of course I did_ , I say. _It’s not like we haven’t - any man in their right mind would_ – and I hear her shift, her skin peeling off from the wall.

 _I’ll sleep with Shireen tonight_ , she says, and the door gives a little, serve-you-right humph.

Of all the gods. She’s been away from her way of living too long. She’s starting to forget how it works.

***

Every time she thought about it, her stomach curdled in embarrassment. She had basically made a half-dressed proposal to Sandor and all he’d wanted to do was get her out of her smallclothes. And she did want to do that again, she did, but _now_. What was the point if he didn’t want to wed her? Maybe she shouldn’t. Maybe she shouldn’t have done any of it.

Sansa spent the morning in the kitchen, washing clothes furiously, her knuckles scrubbed red-raw, not listening to Shireen, who chittered loudly behind her about the harbour, and the new boats she’d seen there. 

There was a rumbling cough and Sandor was at the doorframe. ‘Thought we could go for a walk.’

‘Yes!’ said Shireen, hopping off the bench.

‘Not you,’ he said, and her face fell.

Sansa walked with him, not saying a word and her arm reluctantly in his, until they came to a small public garden. There was a fountain in the middle, a burbling of water like birdsong. Sandor sat down next to her, his movements very light and tense, as if she was a very dangerous wildcat and would spring at him at any moment. _Maybe she would_ , she thought.

‘About – last night.’ He put his palms together on his lap. ‘I didn’t know you were going to say that.’

Sansa looked at the tendrils of ivy, lots of interlocking green and grey hearts. Or dagger-hilts. ‘I know you didn’t. Now.’

There was a silence. ‘I didn’t because the thought never came to me.’

That angered her, then. ‘The thought _never_ came to you?’ All their nightly explorations had all just been no better than whoring to him, then. Gods, she was a fool.

He sighed. ‘No. Of course it didn’t.’

She shook her head furiously. ‘You’ve been _using_ me. You just wanted -’

He opened and shut his mouth. ‘Hells, Sansa, you’re muddling everything. Let me speak, for gods’ sake.’ She gripped one thumb with her other hand, and watched it swell and redden. He sighed again, very slowly. ‘I’m blind, Sansa.’

‘ _I don’t care_ ,’ she said, each of the words carefully released like an arrow from the tautest of bowstrings.

‘If not that, then –‘ He turned towards her. ‘You can’t – there’s no way we can –‘ he couldn’t even say it. ‘You need to be marrying an heir, someone with power, a lordling over in the Southron lands or something.’ 

‘The _Southron_ lands? When am I going back there?’

‘Someone over here, then. Someone with influence, money. A Myrish prince.’ Soft, dry amusement in his voice. There was no such thing.

‘I don’t _love_ a Myrish prince.’ She’d said it before she’d had time to think about it. He looked startled, his eyebrows raising a little, before puzzlement drew lines all over his face, lines she’d never seen before. 

She stood up quickly and stalked off, before remembering that he could hardly find his way back on his own. She stomped back and practically dragged him to the house, not saying a word.

***

Seven buggering – this is just getting worse. Worse, and better, all my wordly dreams and nightmares all wrapped up into one bundle. It’s all I ever wanted, but hearing her say – fucking hells – these things now, when I’m as useless as a lame warhorse, a blunt sword, a helm made of pastry, it’s ending me.

To have her bound to me, having to look after me, lead me around like a bloody puppy. I’d be like a leadball and chain round her ankle for the rest of her life, or for the rest of my life at least, and I’m like to die well before her, given I’m twice her age and more. And bairns – gods, the thought of that, of little black-amber wolfpups made by her and me near curls a Braavosi sword right through my guts, until I think of me never being able to see them, probably treading on them, squashing the damn things to death. She’d have to watch me even more.

I was supposed to have freed her. Not caged her up again.

Still, hearing her talk soft to Gendry over food that evening, even though I know it doesn’t mean anything, makes me remember. That for all my high talk of Myrish princes, I don’t want her wed to anyone else. I’d take the first man who tried to apart with my bare hands.

Gods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kisses and love to all readers (feeling a bit mushy) x x x


	35. Chapter 35

Sansa avoided Sandor as much as possible. She slept with Shireen in their room again – Shireen had asked why until Sansa had given her an uncharacteristic glare and her voice had trailed away into nothing and she’d tucked her lips in on themselves, wide-eyed. Once or twice she passed him in the hallway, and froze, didn’t speak. He knew she was there, of course. But she stayed very still, and he sighed and felt his way past her, and she tried to blink away the guilt at being so devious. 

She couldn’t help it. He didn’t want to marry her. He’d just been – sleeping with her. _Fucking_ her. A word that made her feel oily, grimy. That word was only meant for others. Not for what they were doing. Except in his head, it _was_. And maybe he was right, in some ways. Women – highborn ones, anyway - married for alliances. Women married men that they didn’t care about and had children with them, and perhaps it would turn into love, as it had done for her mother and father. Or perhaps it wouldn’t. Her and Lord Tyrion. She would have hardly ever loved _him_. No – she would never marry someone just to help her try and take back Winterfell. Some Northern lord she hardly knew. The thought made her sick to her stomach. She wanted to marry someone she – 

Loved. How had this come up on her so stealthily? It was hardly any time at all ago that Sandor had still scared her, glowered at her in corridors at King’s Landing or from behind Joffrey’s shoulder. And now – gods, the whole world had changed since then. How did you know what it even _was_? It felt like something floating just out of reach, something very close but that you couldn’t touch, couldn’t fully understand. But whatever she felt for him filled her, from her stomach to her throat. The thought of _not_ being with him left her miserable. 

And infuriated. Because he didn’t feel the same way. 

***

She bloody steals past me in the hallway. I go to say something but I know she’s trying to melt into the wall. She doesn’t know that I can smell her even I can’t see her. Mint leaf, bread, sweat, lemon. I could smell her a league away.

Fine. If she’s to be like that. Leaving my bed cold and all. Fine. Except that it’s not. It’s like an itch, this feeling, ants all over my damned skin. I’m no good at telling her anything. Somehow I’ll have to show her.

Davos is in the kitchen. No one else. He sits down, sighs in that council meeting way he’d done before. _We should move on_ , he says.

I know he’s right. Cersei’s ravens must have found others in this city. But sure as hells they’ll have found other cities, too. There’ll be sellswords waiting for us in every port.

 _Tyrosh is degenerate_ , he says. _Full of fat-bellied drunks and torturers. Anyone would sell the ladies out soon as look at them_. I think on it. Pentos is out. Someone will know we were wanting to go there by now – Sansa told Stannis, if nothing else. 

_We could go further inland_ , he says. _What about your ship_? I say. _It’s a way of getting coin, isn’t it_? I feel an idiot for being so fucking useless, not being able to work. Maybe I can work, somehow. Still got these shoulders, even if my arm’s a bit fucked for now. Ship-auroch, and all that.

 _Ay, true enough_ , he says, sighing again. The rasp of his hand on his beard. _I’ll make enquiries at the harbour_ , he says. _Get the measure of Lys, maybe. Volantis_.

I’ve been wondering if he was might say that he and the little ‘un should go separately from us. It was Cersei’s message that got us those sellswords, after all.

But he says the opposite. _We should stick together, I think_. Reluctance in his voice, directed at me, obvious as anything. I thank the gods, ‘cause if nothing else, I can’t bloody imagine Sansa coming anywhere with me alone right now. _We need to keep coin coming in_ , he says and I take it he means there’s always someone with the girls this way, if he’s away. _And Sansa’s good for Shireen, that’s plain as day_. 

Fuck it. _Speaking of coin_ , I say.

***

Sansa went to visit Gendry at the armoury on her own. Anything to get out of the house. She made sure her lace shawl covered her face, though she wondered if that made her more conspicuous, somehow. No one else wore theirs like that. 

Gendry’s eyes brightened when he saw her. They were already startlingly blue against the colour of the rest of him. He was covered in dirt, black-armed, his clothes soiled. She’d washed them countless times, and each time they emerged a little more grey than they had the last time. He had a lighter smear across his cheek where he’d wiped unsuccessfully at it. 

He put down his tongs and came over to her. ‘Everything alright?’

Sansa nodded, a nod that said _no_.

He squinted at her, kindly. ‘Nothing you want to talk about, then?’ A drop of sweat left his nose.

She shrugged and looked at the floor. 

Gendry scrunched his mouth up slightly and gazed at her. ‘It’s time for my break, near enough, anyway.’

He steered her away to a shaded corner, where the metallic ringing chinks and clangings were a little quieter. Sansa pulled out some bread and strips of salted beef and passed them to him. He took them with a smile.

‘What am I supposed to do now, Gendry?’ she said, feeling hopeless.

‘About what?’ he said, through a mouthful of bread.

‘About _everything_. We’re in danger. I keep thinking that any moment now a sword’s going to come through my back. Or that Shireen’s going to get kidnapped, taken back to Dragonstone. Probably with my head. You’ll all be killed, because of me. You, and Ser Davos, and –‘ she folded her arms tightly and sighed.

Gendry chewed a little more slowly, swallowed, and looked at his filthy nails. ‘I _would_ have been killed if it wasn’t for you. Worse. And Ser Davos has said he’s felt lighter since leaving. Shireen – well, maybe you shouldn’t have taken her, in some ways, but – can’t much imagine her back there. Not now. And Sandor –‘

Sansa took in a sharp breath.

He gave her half a grin and when she didn’t return it, furrowed his brow at her.

‘I asked him to marry me.’ She kicked her heel on the wall, her blushes filling her face. ‘I’m such an idiot.’

Gendry didn’t say anything, his eyebrows raising just a little. He looked out to the street, the men tanning leather over a long wooden table, a child running after a chicken. ‘It’s hard for him,’ he said, and wiped his forehead, leaving another dark-grey smear. ‘You can’t – none of us can really know what it must be like. Maybe he just needs some time.’

The child grabbed the chicken in both hands, and it clucked and squawked, wings flapping wildly. They sat there in silence, sharing the last of the bread. 

‘Those girls are looking at you,’ Sansa said.

Gendry followed her gaze. There were three girls, a little younger than her perhaps, but not much, all in shades of purple, lavender and damask silk and lace, with slightly grubby faces. They hovered by a stack of large barrels, and were staring right at them both, with soft, curious expressions. Or rather, at Gendry.

Sansa could swear that a faint shade of pink appeared underneath all the grime on Gendry’s cheeks. 

‘They’re always there,’ he said. ‘Every lunchtime.’

One of the girls whispered something to the others, and they all burst out giggling. Gendry put a hand in his hair, at the back of his neck, the muscles on his upper arm curving upwards. The lavender girl hit the damask girl on the arm. 

He looked anguished. ‘I don’t know how to get rid of them,’ he said, a little under his breath.

Sansa grinned. ‘I think first of all I need to leave. Before they get the wrong idea.’

***

The little one’s with Davos in the kitchen. I cough. She bounds up, stupid-happy as a bloody rabbit, says hello. _I need your help with something_ , I say. Can practically smell her excitement. I bend down, my knees cricking like dice thrown on stones. Gods, I’m getting old. I whisper in her ear. 

_Yessss_ , she whispers back, as loudly as a whole house falling down.

***

Sansa was in the yard, soaking up the late afternoon sun, trying not to think about her mother, and thinking of everything about her. Her voice, soft as lambswool, her hands, brushing Sansa’s hair, her eyes, narrowing but full of love as her little brothers tumbled off a low wall again. 

A heavy step behind her. Sandor. He made a noise like he was stretching and wanted everyone in the street to know about it. 

‘Got you something,’ he said, leaning against the wall, his arms crossed. He didn’t exactly look happy about it, whatever it was. Perhaps it was a dagger, to defend herself, a way of him trying to persuade her that she needed him even less. She idly thought about stabbing him in the stomach with it, and told herself off. She knew she was supposed to be better, like Gendry had said, but she couldn’t. Not just like that. She was still too embarrassed. Too angry.

He hesitated. ‘Don’t you want to know what it is?’

She stood up. ‘Fine.’

Sandor opened his mouth, hearing her stubbornness, and shut it again. He chewed on his bottom lip. ‘Turn around,’ he said.

Maybe he was going to stab _her_. In the _back_. Oh no, he’d already done that. She turned around very slowly, rolling her eyes to the ceiling, wishing he could see them, and held onto her elbows. 

He stepped closer to her, his breath on the crown of her head. She heard him fiddling with something, something coming out of a pocket. Curses, under his breath. Something very light and cold was at her chest, just below her neck, falling like a tiny trickle of water. A necklace. She felt his fingers at the top of her spine. More almost-imperceptible swearing.

She tucked her chin down, lifted up the small stone. The chain was finespun, tiny curling links, with a small black stone encased in an oval shape in the middle.

He’d bought her a necklace. Something that seemed the opposite of him and his size, something incredibly delicate, and just for her.

The stone was cool, smooth and without a single gleam. 

She turned round to him and spoke very quietly, gently. ‘Why is it black?’ 

He shrugged. ‘Makes me think of the North. And – your hair. I liked the feel of the stone. And it’s what I see. But –‘ He carefully brought his fingers to her breastplate, to the stone she held between her fingers, and turned it over.

The back of the stone must have been sanded flat. It was twinned with another, placed against its back and held together with the fine metal ring around it. 

The stone on the other side was amber.

***

She’s breathing, dead quiet but sharp. Gods. She hates it. She still hates me. What was I thinking, believing a fucking necklace would bloody sort it all out.

I stand there, waiting for – I don’t know what. Yelling, maybe. Fists against my chest. Really fucking disgusting stew dinner. 

There’s a hand on my neck, moving up to the back of my head. She pulls me down, and her lips are there.

***

Black and amber. Her hair now, and what it should be. Or his hair, and her real colour. The black of the dogs on his sigil, and the amber of the field they sat on.

There was a feeling like hot fruit in her belly. Strawberries, blackberries, sloe berries, puddling and warm. She didn’t know what to say, and just stood there with her arm still around his neck.

‘It’s not -’ he said, and there was the tiniest trace of flint in his voice, which was guarded too, like she might still throw rocks at him. She understood what he meant. It’s not a _proposal_. ‘I mean –‘ a quick toss of his head, as if he was disagreeing with himself. ‘I don’t know, Sansa, I – fuck.’ He flung his hands down, straight by his sides. He drew his bottom lip in. ‘I don’t know how we could, while I’m – now I’m – but - you have to know that –‘

‘Know what?’ Sansa said, her voice very small.

He made a sound like a frustrated, hungry horse. His shoulders dropped and he looked above her head. Not trying to look at her at all. His mouth opened. A little expulsion of breath. ‘I do. Too. Not a Myrish prince.’

Sansa grinned. She couldn’t help it.

He heard her. ‘You’re laughing at me.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Let’s just – see.’ He looked rueful. ‘Not that I can. I mean –‘

She lifted herself up onto her toes, and kissed him again, just to shut him up.

***

Bloody hells. Feel like I’ve been through a half-year-long battle. With White Walkers and wildlings and big-arsed hairy fucking giants.

I’ve Davos to thank. He’s agreed to get me work, doing something at the harbour, whlist we work out what the hells to do next. Though he says someone needs to watch the girls, that we’d need to rotate. Gave me an advance. Never in my whole entire godsforsaken fucking life did I think I’d go bargaining for coin for a bloody _necklace_.

I need to eat something. No, I don’t. I’d chuck it all back up. How can you be seasick on fucking land?

***

He loved her. It was nigh-on impossible for him to say it, but she knew what he meant. Sansa sat at the kitchen table on her own, rubbing her thumb over and over the front and the back of the stones.

Shireen came jumping in, humming, and sat down in front of her. ‘ _That’s_ a very nice necklace. Who’s it from?’

Sansa pinched her arm, gently. ‘Sandor.’

‘Well, it’s _very_ nice. I think the person who found that must have really, _really_ good taste. And should be rewarded with many fine, sweet-tasting presents.’ Shireen propped her head up on her hand and grinned beatifically at her. 

Sansa couldn’t help the slow, wide smile that filled her cheeks. They both burst into giggles.


	36. Chapter 36

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Jillypups (with slight nudges to mrm1 and Cassiopaya for help)!

_It’s damned hot_ , I say. I don’t even mean anything by it – well, I do, but still. It bloody is.

She’s lying next to me, on her side, just a sheet over us. Something’s changed in her. Well, she’s back again, for a start. But not just that. She’s gone all bloody dreamy, cloudstuffed. Guess it did work after all. That, and – my bloody tongue getting tied in knots. Never been much one for talking straight – you’ve got the Spider and the Imp, all the bloody Lannisters for all that smooth-tongued bollocks – but hells. I sounded like a fucking village idiot.

She hums in reply and slides the sheet off ‘til it’s halfway down my legs. Wonder what she’s thinking now, in that black-amber skull of hers. I’ve no bloody idea. I’m not doing anything again, not without her sayso. I don’t know. It’s madness, all of it, but if it means she’s here, and that I won’t lose her, then – fuck knows. 

Her hand’s on my chest, cool palm coming over my belly. Fingers fiddling with my breeches, pulling them down. Of course I bloody do, you know – Gods, can’t even think the damn words. Why the hells did I not fuck off during Blackwater if there wasn’t some damned sea-chain in my gut pulling me to her? It’s just – I never thought it would do any good. 

My breeches are off. Her hand’s on my – gods.

***

He was as hot as if he’d just been baked in an oven. She’d decided to touch him there, on her own, no help necessary. So they weren’t married. Yet. It didn’t matter. Not really. Sansa levered herself up so that one of her legs was between his thighs, and gripped him a little harder. She leant down to him and dared herself to kiss his stomach. He groaned and shifted a little. She was making him do that. Her tongue found the arrow-tip of one of his old scars, and she drew it along the whole, taut line of skin. And found another scar. And another.

***

Gods in all the – 

Well, she’s changed her tune. Less knights and fair maidens and more Bear and The Maiden – she’s taken her shift off and all. Wolf and the Warrior Fair. She’s holding me like I’m a bloody milk-cow but that’s alright, I’ll let her try it out on her own. Her smallclothes are right up against my balls, and I can feel her dampness. I put my hands on her thighs, at that curve of her waist. She’s like sculpted ice. No – like a perfectly polished saddle-side. 

Her mouth’s on my cock. I bang my head on the wall. _Gods, Sansa_ , I say. _Where in the hells did you learn that_? She lifts her head. _Nowhere_ , she says. _I have ears. Maids talk_. Maids talk about sucking cock to ladies? I think, and feel a bit outraged before I forget to feel anything at all because her mouth’s there again. To be fair, she doesn’t entirely know what she’s doing, but I’m not sure I care that much, not really. She’s kissing me, and licking me, and that bloody knee is right there, and if I’m not bloody careful I’ll – 

_Slow down, little bird_ , I say. 

***

She put her mouth there. It tasted alright, really. Salty. She wondered if that’s what she tasted like. Sandor lifted her up as if she was as light as a pillow, grunting as she brushed against his injured arm, and placed her next to him again. She hoped she had not done anything too untoward. She was sure that people did that. She knew they did. Perhaps not highborn ladies. She tried not to think about how she would have done that to Lord Tyrion if he’d been standing up.

__Sandor gathered her into him by the waist, and very slowly, brought his mouth down on her earlobe. Gods. It made her feel like she was only held together by threads, and they were loosening bit by bit. His tongue at the top of her ear. And her neck. And she was loosening again, or her smallclothes were. His hand between her legs. Under her bottom. Thumb there. She made a ridiculous sound, like a mouse squeaking._ _

__He slid a finger into her and took a slow breath in. ‘You’re very wet, little bird.’_ _

__Her mind had become a tiny, cloudy rainpuddle. ‘Sandor, will you –‘_ _

__He stopped moving, his finger – fingers – still inside her. ‘Will I what?’_ _

__She wiped the side of her mouth, hesitated. ‘I’m sorry. About before.’ She didn’t know how to say it. ‘I need you to –‘_ _

__‘To what?’ His face was very close to her cheek, his voice so low it was part-mud. ‘If you don’t say it, I won’t know what you mean. Might get it wrong again.’ She couldn’t tell if he was being deathly serious or not. There might have been a trace of something wry in his voice._ _

__His fingers moved, a little deeper. She let out a big breath and spoke very, very quietly. ‘I need you to be inside me.’_ _

__He tugged his bottom lip in with a tooth. And smiled._ _

*** 

_There_. No mistaking it this time. Imagine that, someone asking me to. No one’s ever said anything like that to me before. Whores never said anything much, thanks the gods, ‘cause they had missing teeth and lisps and strange accents and I never wanted to think about anything. That other lass said some fucking dirty things but no one’s ever said what Sansa just did. 

The inside of her arm is as cool as a rock next to a river. I put my hand on it, my cheek, then get her properly on her back, me inbetween her. I duck down, put my mouth on her. My arm’s hurting but I try and ignore it, concentrate on her. She makes an awkward little sound, and I slide my tongue right up inside her. Gods, she tastes of a shallow bit of sea that’s been in the sun. A rock pool. A tiny hum and she says my name, sounding near-bothered. 

_What_ , I say, coming up. _You didn’t say which bit of me you wanted inside you_. I go down again, grinning as I lick her. Might as well make sure she’s really bloody ready. 

*** 

She was all liquid. The whole of her lower body seemed to have turned into a late summer garden, limpid and warm and melting. The mashed plums that had started falling in the gardens in Kings Landing before they had escaped. Every bit of feeling seemed to have honed to right there. Sandor was breathing heavily, hot breath between her legs. He was _teasing_ her. 

__Sansa pulled his head away from her by the roots of his hair._ _

__He looked up towards her head, half-shocked. ‘Seven hells. That hurt.’_ _

__‘Sor – sorry.’ She flung one arm across her stomach and arched her back a little, throwing herself down on the bed. ‘It’s just –‘_ _

__He breathed a tiny laugh through his nose. ‘Alright, little bird. As you command.’ A wry mock-servitude._ _

__Sansa felt herself flush. She didn’t know what had come over her. She just knew that she wanted him again, to try it again._ _

__He moved up to her, lying at her side, his body half-covering hers, his damp hand trailing up her belly, her breast. ‘You’re –‘ he said, his voice drifting. He couldn’t seem to find the words._ _

__‘What?’_ _

__He swallowed and shook his head. His thumb ran over a mole at the side of her ribcage, as he’d done several times before. As if checking it was still there, that and all of her raised features. His own map._ _

__Then he raised himself up, and moved her legs apart. He was kneeling, a hand under her bottom, the other helping himself slowly push into her. It felt somehow more real than last time, which had been clouded by pain. This time she could really feel him, each bit of skin and hard muscle entering her. She could feel herself expanding. He gently pulled her up a bit, so that her bottom and thighs were raised up on his knees, and eased into her again._ _

__She made the sort of sound someone would make if they were putting their toes in freezing cold water._ _

__Sandor stopped. ‘It hurts,’ he said. Not a question._ _

__‘No, I –‘ she felt even more heat rise to her cheeks._ _

__‘You have to bloody tell me. I can’t know otherwise.’_ _

__‘It –‘ She wasn’t cut out for this. For talking about it. When he was right there. Inside her. He shifted slightly, and she made that sound again. ‘It doesn’t hurt. It’s - it’s better.’_ _

__That tip of his head again, listening. Thinking. And then he began to move again, and her head became hazy and she lay there, very still, wondering what it would feel like if he was looking at her._ _

__‘You can move too, you know,’ he said, those fogged eyes somewhere near her cheek._ _

__And he showed her how._ _

__***_ _

__It’s different, with her. Whores play it out like they’re in a bloody mummer’s farce, big wide mouths and grand moans and sighs with too much air in them. This, with Sansa, is smaller, darker. She just makes these sounds – sounds that I think are her in pain, at first – tiny half-breaths, like the air’s not quite reaching her lungs._ _

__Fucking hell, but she’s the warmest thing. And she’s like wine that’s sharp and sweet at once. I slide a bit further into her as she begins to move a little, and it’s all I can bloody do not to just erupt inside her. I have to start thinking of all the bloody Houses in Westeros, like I get the little one to do, and not just the Houses but the heads of the Houses, and their bloody wives and all their bloody children. I try and count how many Freys I can name. How many Lannisters. Gods._ _

__Her breathing’s changing. Shorter, like dagger-stabs, with longer gaps in between. I put my forearm under her knee, hook it up a bit to get a little deeper – maybe that’s too much – and lean down to her. Gods, my bloody arm. No matter. I’m trying to listen to her sounds, like it’s music, trying to know how she is, whether she’s near the end of her song or not._ _

__She suddenly grabs me, arm around my neck, brings me down further, practically strangles me. She makes a sound like she’s teetering on the edge of a high cliff, has almost fallen off, and I feel her stomach come away from mine, her thighs go taut as bowstrings, and another sound that’s far too bloody loud for this house, almost a sob, and I think, that’s my girl, and I wrap myself around her, tighter, pushing, imagine myself as hot oil, pouring myself into her, filling her up._ _

__***_ _

__A feeling like a sail being unravelled, slowly at first, then suddenly tipping and tumbling down, and billowing outwards. Like fruit jam layered and spread, over and over, sticky and covering everything. Like stars, far away, exploding._ _

__It felt a bit like all of those things, or none of them. She’d never felt anything quite like that before._ _

__Sandor had clutched her so tightly she thought she might expire completely, all her breath crushed out. He’d given a single, long, quiet groan that sounded like five curses mixed together as he’d made a final push into her, and she’d felt that small pulsing of liquid, as she’d felt before. Except without the pain. Soreness, maybe, but hardly any pain at all._ _

__They remained there, glued together, for some moments. His heart sounded like it was trying to break out of his ribcage to get into hers._ _

__Sansa shifted. She really could hardly breathe. ‘Sandor -‘_ _

__He made a hum like he’d just woken up from a season-long slumber._ _

__‘You need to move. I’m – you’re heavy.’_ _

__He pulled out of her, rolled to her side. ‘Ay. Gods. Sorry. Gods.’_ _

__She could feel his liquid trickling out of her. A sweet, throbbing sensation was still ebbing slowly away from her stomach, her thighs._ _

__Her nose almost touched his. She touched his cheek and he opened his eyes – a dull, opaque gleam in the dark. ‘Sandor – what do we do now?’ She spoke very softly._ _

__He sniffed. ‘Sleep. Like the dead.’_ _

__She hadn’t meant that at all. ‘No. Now. Here.’ She let out a small sigh behind closed lips. ‘I know we can’t stay here forever. Cersei will find us. Or Stannis will.’ He made a sound that was a grumble full of air. ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.’_ _

__He put a hand at the curve of her waist and exhaled, long and low. ‘There’s no one answer. Nowhere’s safe, not truly.’ He squeezed her side, gently. ‘I’m sorry, little bird, but that’s how it is.’_ _

__Her mind felt like mortar, squashed and smoothed out. ‘Should we go to another Free City?’_ _

__‘Maybe.’_ _

__‘I like it here.’ She did. She liked the air, the style of dress, the food they ate. The freedom. But people were strange, too, superstitious, and she couldn’t help feeling that the Narrow Sea wasn’t enough space between them and Dragonstone, between them and King’s Landing. ‘What’s it like further East? Further inland?’_ _

__‘I’ve no idea. Never been off Westeros apart from this. No idea what any of it bloody looks like.’ His voice had lowered, even got a trace of near-amusement in it. Imagine that, Sandor almost making a joke about his blindness. ‘But you don’t want to go too far. Slave cities are further over. Last place you want to be.’_ _

__She ran a nail along his forearm, up to the muscle below his shoulder. ‘You said I’m the Stark heir.’_ _

__‘You know you are.’ He sounded distant, sleepy.__

She wasn’t Robb. Or her father. ‘I’m just a girl.’ 

Sandor chewed his lip, blinked, trying to keep himself awake. ‘There’s someone over here somewhere, those slave cities I think. She has a claim to the Iron Throne, so they say. So she says. She’s gathering an army. She’s just a _girl_.’ He squeezed her side again. 

An army. What Northern army must be left now, over there in Westeros? What on earth will have happened to all the families that were sworn to the North? The Umbers, the Greatjons, the Hornwoods? Had they all sworn themselves to the Lannisters? It was said that Lord Bolton had betrayed her family. Had he taken over Winterfell? All of the North? All she could picture was her continent covered in golden lions, prowling scorched earth, the corpses of flayed men everywhere. 

__‘Can’t I just – can’t we just –‘_ _

__‘Just what?’ he said, not ungently._ _

__She shook her head. Live quietly, she thought, somewhere surrounded by vines and olive groves, in a small house, in safety. Perhaps with children, her own children, plump things picking up worms and sitting in piles of leaves and –_ _

__Her own children. That was it, of course. If she had children – she would only be creating more Starks. Starks that someone – Boltons, Lannisters, Freys – would want to kill, just to be sure. It was just as Sandor said. There was no safety. Not for her._ _

__‘You need to find some moontea,’ he said suddenly, putting a hand on her stomach. How had he known what she had been thinking?_ _

__He was right, though. No children, not yet. They weren’t even married. Perhaps they’d never be married._ _

__‘I have a half-brother,’ she said._ _

__‘Ay. That lad up at the Wall. Thinking of taking the black?’_ _

__She made a small sound of frustration. Of course she wasn’t. But Jon was there, on Westeros, whether he was a man of the Night’s Watch or not. He was the only one truly left. She thought of the last time she’d seen him, solemn in his dark furs, riding out with Uncle Benjen from home. Winterfell. What did it look like now? A charred ruin? Had the walls tumbled down?_ _

__A sadness collected in her like a snowdrift. ‘They destroyed my home. My family.’_ _

__Sandor put a hand in her hair. ‘I know. I’m sorry. He moved slightly, and his eyebrows drew in towards each other. ‘If you want to take back what’s yours, then you should. Just – it could take a bloody long time. And someone will always want to kill you.’_ _

__‘So what do we do?’_ _

__He sniffed. ‘Not get killed. Gather alliances. But the only way to do that is – well, you know what that is.’_ _

‘I told you. I’m not marrying anyone for that.’ _I’m not marrying anyone else_. ‘Can’t I do it another way?’ 

__His fingers found the chain of her necklace, and he rubbed it absently. ‘What you’ve got is your name. That’s more valuable than any bloody jewel. That’s what Houses will want. You can’t promise them much else. Unless you’re planning to bargain with the girl. Baratheon’s maybe more of a name these days.’_ _

__Sansa’s jaw set. ‘I’m not trading Shireen.’_ _

__He gave a wry smile. ‘Didn’t think so.’_ _

__‘Who is the girl in the slave cities married to?’_ _

__He sniffed. ‘Don’t know.’ He lowered his voice again, added a little trace of gravel. ‘They say she’s got bloody dragons.’_ _

__Sansa’s eyes widened. That couldn’t be true, surely. She tried to picture great winged beasts screaming through the air, flames coming from open mouths. She touched his cheek again, the hardened, textured skin like scales there. Maybe she had her own dragon. One who’d looked fire in the face._ _

__‘Maybe I’ll just get some of them, then,’ she said, wishing it wasn’t a joke._ _

__He snorted. ‘Ay. I’ll sort that out. One for you and one for the little bloody gnatfly you’ve stolen.’_ _

__‘I didn’t –‘ Take her? _Steal_ her? ‘I just wanted to free her. Show her a better life.’ _ _

__‘Ay, well, you’ve shown her a thing or two. She’s seen more dead bodies in the last weeks than she probably ever did.’_ _

__‘Don’t say that.’ She was no closer to an answer. ‘Sandor, please – tell me what to do.’_ _

__‘Not my place to tell you. You have to decide for yourself. But for now, staying alive’s the main thing. Not getting found, here or anywhere else.’ He sniffed. ‘I think we should stay in Essos. Westeros is too bloody small. Too many people know us. But move. Keep moving, probably. And then, further down the line, I don’t know –‘ he looked irritable – ‘talk to people, send letters, whatever it is you bloody highborns do. Kill the ones who’ve wronged you.’ He swallowed, a sound like the clink of bottles, followed by another long breath. ‘I’ll help. I haven’t got what you need –‘_ _

__‘You have.’_ _

__He exhaled through closed lips. ‘You know what I mean. I’m not – House Clegane doesn’t have land, or bannermen, or any of that shite. You might as well ally with a hollowed-out fucking tree. But, I don’t know, at least I could –‘ he scratched his forehead, sighing. ‘It’s not what I’m bloody used to, sitting round a table, talking -‘ uttered with the utmost disdain – ‘but – if that’s what you want.’ He shifted, caught his injured arm underneath himself, and made a short grumble of pain behind closed lips. The sound a tired, annoyed bear would make._ _

__‘Are you – does it still hurt?’ she said._ _

__‘Ay. It does that.’ He moved off it, lay it along her torso. ‘And I’d do it a hundred times over if it meant keeping you safe.’_ _

__Sansa kissed him, her hand on his unburnt jaw. A kiss for her necklace. One for the - things – he had done to her. Another for his offer to help, even though she didn’t really know what he’d be helping with. She slid her tongue in, drew her leg up into his crotch._ _

__He pulled away. ‘You’re not getting any more of that, you bloody she-wolf. Let me sleep.’_ _

__***_ _

__There’s a little clatter in her breath, like a bit of loose chainmail. Her mouth must be open just a notch. Just sleeping here – or not, as it happens, right now – with her, as warm on the outside as she is on the inside, is like a sort of peace, just a sliver of it._ _

__Won’t last long, I know. Savour it while it lasts. Her, I mean. Like the last finger of wine in a skin when you’ve got days of riding ahead of you. At least she’s gone soft again, didn’t beat me over the head for me to wake up in a godswood with a septon coughing in front of me, flowers in my fucking hair._ _

__The future is – I don’t know. It’s small. As small as this black world I’m in now. I wish I could give her answers, proper ones, but – none of us fucking know what’s round the next wall. Least of all me._ _

__Promising her – I don’t even know what. To be her blind bloody general in an army of two. Three, if you count the little – Shireen, five if you add in a smuggler who doesn’t drink enough and a boy who can just about hold a sword straight._ _

__***_ _

‘You said I could. You _did_!’ 

It was the most furious Sansa had seen Shireen. The dark crusts of skin on the side of her face were creased up and she looked just about ready to put her fist in Sandor’s eye. 

__‘I bloody didn’t,’ he said._ _

__‘You said if I could recite all the Houses backwards, I could sing you a song.’_ _

__Sandor sniffed and folded his arms, the merest of grins on his face. ‘Must have had a skinful.’ Shireen kicked his calf. ‘Ow. I don’t remember.’ She kicked him again. ‘I bloody hate singing.’_ _

__Shireen stood very still, staring at him, before putting her hands in her hair and making the sort of noise Mendrel had done in the mornings on the ship, coughing out all the grog of the night before._ _

__‘Come on, my lady,’ said Ser Davos. ‘I need to see to the ship. You can sing me all the songs you want on the way.’_ _

__He took her hand and Shireen did her frustrated shriek-growl again. She said several Myrish words in quick succession to Sandor as she passed him, her tongue clicking._ _

__Sandor grinned._ _

__‘What did she say?’ asked Sansa._ _

__‘Don’t know them, but I’ll give my right arm that they were the best bloody-minded curses she’s learnt yet.’ He put his hand and his fingers caught the top of her skirts. He pulled her towards him and put his nose into her neck. ‘What do you smell of?’_ _

__‘You,’ she said, feeling suddenly shy. ‘I need to wash.’_ _

__‘No point.’ He stood up, half-lifting her with his good arm. ‘You’ll just have to do it again.’_ _

__And he pulled her upstairs, and didn’t need any guiding at all._ _

__***_ _

__Well, I could do that all bloody day. We’re back downstairs, just, and she’s filling up another bucket for me to have a wash and all, and I bloody need it, when the door slams, hard.__

_Sansa_. It’s the boy, his breath short, sharp, and lots of it. _It’s – there’s_ – his breaths get in the way again. I can tell his head’s facing the floor, must be bent over a bit. Fear threaded in his voice. I lie my palms flat on the table, listen. _Get it out, then_ , I say, wondering where the hells my sword is, how many sellswords are chasing him down. 

His bones creak a bit as he straightens up. _She’s here_ , he says. 

He can only mean one person.


	37. Chapter 37

That fucking red death-bitch. Swear I can feel her, like stag beetles under my skin. The air’s changed. 

Sansa gets my sword from the hallway. _Did she see you_? I ask the boy. He’s still out of breath. _I don’t – I don’t think so. No_ , he says. I’m taking no chances. _Who was she with_? I say. _Guards_ , he says. _Five, or maybe six_. 

_Well, which fucking is it_? I say. _Six_ , he says.

I feel my guts churning. _I’m not running from her_ , I say. _You should go_ , I say to the boy. He starts to say something. _You’re a Baratheon too, aren’t you_? I say. _She’ll fucking have you. Get to Davos and the ship. Get it ready to sail_.

A thud-thump from the hallway. Again. The sound of the door, splintering. The boy swears, quietly. So much for not being seen. They bloody followed him here.

 _Get_ , I say to him, quickly, under my breath. _Over the back wall. You too_ , I say to Sansa. _No_ , she says. _I won’t_.

 _Fuck’s sake, Sansa, now isn’t the time_ , I say.

A hand on my arm, fingers clutching me tight. _If you’re not running, nor am I_ , she says.

 _Me neither_ , says the boy.

***

The Red Lady stood in the hallway, her scarlet cloak draped over her shoulders, the air whispering around her. Three guards dressed in black flanked her on either side. The front door hung halfway off its hinges.

She fixed blood-coloured eyes on Sansa. ‘Lady Sansa.’ She glanced fleetingly about her, and at Sandor and Gendry. ‘I would not have thought you comfortable in a Free City, yet here you are. You have set up quite a home. I believe I underestimated you.’

Sandor was right behind Sansa, utterly tense, his chest almost touching her back, his hand on the hilt of his sword. Gendry was next to her, poised. Sansa felt too paralysed to speak. 

‘You should not have left Dragonstone, my lady,’ said Melisandre. ‘Remaining with his Grace would have been the wisest thing you could have done, given the destruction of your family. King Stannis always greatly respected your father.’ She stepped past the guards, in front of Sansa, and put a hand on her cheek. Her eyes were searing. ‘You have tainted his memory, and the memory of your mother. Your brother.’

Sansa seemed to have stopped breathing.

‘Where is Lady Shireen?’ Melisandre’s voice was soft as adders’ tongues.

Sansa stayed very still, the Red Lady’s cool palm on her face, and stared straight back at her. ‘She’s not here. She left with Ser Davos many days ago.’

The Red Lady’s eyes remained on Sansa. They dug into her bones. ‘Search this house,’ she said coolly to the guards, who clattered past her. She removed her hand and looked at Sandor, who was breathing heavily behind her.

‘Sandor Clegane. How are your eyes?’

‘Fuck you,’ he said evenly.

Her eyes drifted over to Gendry. Sansa could feel the heat from his cheeks as he looked at the floor and then back up at her, fiercely.

A faint curl of a smile played like a smoke trail across her face before she looked at Sansa again. ‘You are loyal. I admire that. But it will not help here. I will find her. His Grace must have his daughter back. He needs her. We all do.’

‘You heard the girl,’ said Sandor. ‘She’s not fucking here.’

One guard came downstairs, holding some crumpled drawings in his fist and a small dress of Shireen’s in the other. Two more followed, shaking their heads. 

The Red Lady’s breath was on Sansa’s face. ‘You must return her.’ The words strayed over her like wisps of hair, or moths, or ravens’ wings.

‘How can I return what I don’t have?’ said Sansa, trying to keep her voice smooth, featureless. ‘They left. Quickly. That’s why her things are still here. We decided to split up. We thought it would be safer. And now I’m glad we did.’

Melisandre stared at her and Sansa could almost hear her thoughts brewing and bubbling. ‘Very well. If that is how it is to be. You are strong. I see that. What you don’t see is what is coming. To all of us. And sooner than you think.’ She took one step away, her head held high. She didn’t seem to need to _breathe_. ‘I will make a bargain with you, if I must. If you return her –‘ and she glanced up at Sandor before looking at Sansa with those deep, burnt-ruby eyes, eyes that burrowed into Sansa’s lungs, her stomach, her pelvis – ‘I will return the Hound his sight.’

***

Fuck her. Fuck her to all the seven fucking hells.

***

Sansa looked at her fingers. They were still trembling, as buffeted by a strong wind. She could see red everywhere - the rinds of the fruits, the edges of the flowers she’d put in a clay mug on the table, the brown-red tiles of the floor.

Melisandre had left with her guards. Her boat was also moored in the harbour, she had said, and she would remain there. Somehow, she knew Sansa was lying.

Sandor had told Gendry to try and find Shireen and Ser Davos, and to tell them not to come back here. To go, anywhere, on his ship, and fast. Sansa felt tears prick her eyes. The thought of not seeing her again – 

The door slammed and light footsteps pattered down the hallway. 

Shireen came bounding in, Ser Davos following. ‘The sun’s so hot today, my toes are burnt to death, and everyone’s hiding in the shade, even though there’s hardly any –‘

‘Go upstairs and pack your things,’ said Sandor.

Shireen stopped whirling. ‘Why?’

Ser Davos looked at him, and at Sansa, his face first questioning, and then growing dark and worried. ‘Ay. Go on, Shireen. Quickly now.’

Shireen’s shoulders dropped, but she seemed to understand that now was not the time to complain. She screwed up the side of her mouth and left the room.

Sansa, her heart fluttering behind her ribcage like a panicked bird, told Ser Davos what had happened, he clamping a hand on his beard, his eyes furious on the first mention of the Red Lady’s name.

‘Of all the gods,’ he said. ‘It had to happen sometime.’ He looked at Sansa. ‘What will you do?’

‘We need to split up,’ said Sandor. 

Ser Davos frowned. ‘Meaning no offence, but you won’t be all too quick on your own.’

Sandor folded his arms. ‘I’m not having any fucking bargaining going on my part for her bloody sake.’

‘What do you mean?’

Sansa took a deep breath. ‘She said she’d return Sandor’s sight if we gave her Shireen. But –‘

Sandor’s head suddenly twitched to the side. Shireen was at the doorframe. ‘You didn’t hear that,’ he said.

She put one hand on the frame, her fingers drawing downwards. ‘I did hear it.’

Sansa went up to her, knelt down. ‘It doesn’t matter. We’d never do that. Are you ready?’

Shireen looked past Sansa’s ear, to Sandor. Her eyes were keen, dark, thoughtful. Her fingers continued to stroke the frame of the door, and then stopped. ‘It’s alright. I’ll just go.’ She stood up very straight, her chin held high. ‘I’ll just go with her.’

‘No, you fucking won’t,’ said Sandor.

‘But I want you to see again.’ 

‘She’s not going to give me my bloody sight back. She’ll hand me my balls on a fucking plate and call it mercy.’

‘But if she said –‘

Sandor jerked his head towards her. ‘She says there’s one god who likes nothing more than a good burning. She says flames tell her what’s in the future. If she told you cakes grew up from the ground or rats were once fucking kings would you bloody believe her?’

Shireen looked at her fingers. ‘Perhaps Father wants to have me back. He does love me. Maybe Mother, too.’ There was a trace of sadness in her voice.

Sansa felt a little thread tug in her chest. Perhaps all this time – of course she would miss her family. Her real one. She still had one, even if Sansa didn’t. But she couldn’t mean it, not after everything she’d seen here – Essos, markets, silks, birds, glass bowls stancked as high as houses, daylight. ‘Shireen –‘ she put her hand on Shireen’s shoulder. ‘You don’t _want_ to go?’ Her voice became uncertain. ‘Do you?’

Shireen looked at Sansa with her clear green eyes, and then she looked across at Sandor, who had his head slightly cocked towards her, his shoulders utterly still. She nodded, a small, mouse-like movement, before lifting her head and speaking clearly, guilelessly. ‘Yes.’

***

Some fair fucking exchange. My gut’s a boiling fucking silage pit. The thought of that little girl giving herself up in the blind – _blind_ – hope of my sight returning damn near flays me. I know she’s lying. I know the shape of her voice well enough.

Maybe now’s the time to just end it. Make this all easier, in the long run, for everyone. Except – there’s Sansa, and her hands, and her smell, and her breath on my face, mint leaf and cinnamon. Fuck. Taking myself out of the picture doesn’t help none here, not really. They’ll still want her back. Gods fucking damn everything.

Davos at the door. _I’ll get everything to the ship_ , he says. _Ay_ , I say, heavy. _And then we need to talk_ , he says. Gravel and weight in his voice. _Ay_ , I say again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry if this is a bit silly. EXCEPT I'M NOT. Sorry it's not Dany. Or Cersei. Or Arya. EXCEPT I'M NOT.   
> PS Feeling well ill in bed so all comment-love appreciated... Ta as always for reading!


	38. Chapter 38

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this was originally sort of one chapter with the previous one, so as I'm lying here twiddling my thumbs...
> 
> For TeresaTrav (long-promised)!

Sansa’s heart was high in her throat. She couldn’t quite believe that this was happening, that they were walking, calmly, towards the Red Lady, not running hells-for-leather away from her in the other direction. Shireen was carrying a small bundle of her belongings – she’d given Sansa three of her best drawings – and holding her hand.

Sansa was in turmoil. Did Shireen really want to go? Was she doing the right thing? It was her family, for better or for worse. Sometimes – not for everyone, not for Sandor – the family bonds were stronger than any other. She’d thought that she was looking after Shireen, that Shireen had been happy, but – she couldn’t be sure.

Ser Davos and Gendry were walking ahead of them, and Sandor was holding onto her elbow.

Oh Gods. They could all be killed.

‘Shireen, you don’t have to do this,’ she said quietly.

‘It’s fine. I want to. Truly,’ Shireen said, in a plain voice. 

They neared the quiet corner of the harbour, and the small ship flying the white flag with the thinly-streaking flames that Sansa remembered watching in the gardens high on the cliff at Dragonstone. There was almost no one here, save two fishing vessels further off with seagulls rioting over them, and stacks of barrels and crates everywhere. Large stones, perhaps once part of a store building, stood in clumps and columns. 

A guard saw them and went running up the sloping ramp onto the ship. Three more guards who had been talking at the edge of the quay, rose, clunking, came together and swiftly walked towards them, their hands on their swords. Ser Davos, Gendry – and Sandor, moments later, having heard them – did the same. Shireen’s grip tightened on Sansa’s hand.

They stopped a little way away, just as Melisandre came out onto deck and walked down the ramp. Or _glided_ , as if she was a little off the ground, wrapping her red cloak around her shoulders. Five more guards followed her. Of course. Of course there were more guards. She hardly gave Ser Davos or Gendry a glance as they parted, and stepped up to Sansa, Shireen and Sandor, who had dropped Sansa’s elbow, and had both hands on his sword.

Melisandre knelt down to Shireen. ‘I’m very glad to see you, Lady Shireen. Are you well? Have they hurt you?’

Shireen’s eyebrows raised a little as she glanced up at Sansa, before looking back at Melisandre and shaking her head.

The Red Lady tilted her head, her eyes soft. ‘Your father has missed you greatly. He has prayed every day to the Lord of Light for your safe return.’

Shireen frowned. ‘He doesn’t believe in the Lord of Light.’

‘He does, sweet child. And so will you, one day soon. The one true God knows all, and lights the way forward with shining flames, flames brighter than you can imagine. He brought me to you.’ She reached out towards Shireen. ‘Now, shall we go to him.’ It wasn’t really a question. Sansa wasn’t sure if she meant Stannis, or her Lord of Light.

Shireen let go of Sansa, put her bundle down and clasped her hands behind her back. ‘No. Not yet.’ Her voice had changed, just a little.

Melisandre remained exactly where she was, crouched in front of her, her gaze wide and unflinching.

Shireen stood firm. ‘I’m not going with you unless you cure Sandor.’

An almost imperceptible exhalation of breath from Sandor next to her.

Melisandre smiled inscrutably. ‘You are a gracious girl. You have your father’s strength.’

Shireen’s voice was a hard, round pebble. ‘I won’t go. You have to do it. You said. If you just take me and don’t cure him, I’ll throw myself overboard on the way back. Or I’ll jump off the cliff back at Dragonstone.’

Sansa’s heart hitched. Shireen didn’t want to go. Of course she didn’t. She was doing it for Sandor.

The Red Lady stared at Shireen for a long moment. ‘As you please. I gave my word.’ She straightened, and slipped a hand into her red cloak, bringing out a tall, slim vial, with a glowing purple liquid inside. She addressed Sansa firmly. ‘You should join us, Lady Sansa. You will be safe with King Stannis. He will protect you. Find you the right person to marry. Perhaps in time, he will help you rebuild Winterfell.’

Sansa gave a cold, tight smile. ‘I’ll do it myself.’ 

Melisandre’s eyes held her. Sansa felt like she was suspended in the air. ‘Very well. There is much to be done, far from here.’ She took Shireen’s hand, and leant down to her a little. ‘You will be important to us, my lady. We have work to do.’

Shireen took two steps forward with her and turned back round to Sansa with an unvarnished stare. She smiled. 

Now. They had to do it _now_. She looked at Ser Davos, who was putting a hand up in the air.

And then everything happened very fast. The Red Lady had given the merest glance over to a guard on her left, and he drew his sword and dashed over to Ser Davos, stabbing him in the side.

***

There’s noise, everywhere. A soft grunt, from Davos I think, and the little one, screaming. Fuck. They’ve got there before us. I get out my sword, push Sansa out of the way. 

At the same time, there are sounds of blades from all around me, the cold hiss of steel, like a nest of snakes. Our sellswords, the ones Davos has been working on, a few more than her guards, I think. I hope.

Sellswords are fickle fucking bastards. They’ll kill for the slightest flash of coin. Thank fuck in our case.

I hear something behind me, a lunge, and whip round, stick my sword out, hope to the gods. I find mail and flesh, somewhere, and he tumbles, sudden, a low wheeze and spit. I hear hard breathing past him, know it’s the boy, saving my fucking skin.

 _This way_ , he says, and by the whimper I know Shireen’s with him, and Sansa’s there, clutching my arm. I don’t know who’s pulling who, but soon my shoulders hit a wall, and they’ve been pushed behind it out of the way.

Blades. Shouting. I’m doing my best to hear everything, but it’s impossible. My back’s against stone, which at least means no one can come at me from behind, but it’s no good. I can’t fight like this, not enough. I just throw my sword out when I hear anyone come near, in the hope they’ll not come near the girls. Fuck.

Mostly I listen. Grunts. Blades. Shouting. The rattle of mail. Slowly, the sounds change. Panting, scuffling, coughing, a final groan from someone. Gulls. The sea against the quay wall.

 _They’re all dead_ , Sansa whispers near my ear. _We did it_. I can hear the little one behind me, breathing quick and fast, crying. _Gendry has her_ , says Sansa. I know who she means. She pulls me over, tells me his foot’s on her chest.

I lean down, feel, find a thin arm, pull her up, hold that steaming bitch’s throat under my hand, my other arm round her waist. She goes dead still, stiller than stone. _You need to return her_ , she says, somehow still calm as anything, almost as if nothing’s happened.

 _I’d kill her before I let you fucking take her_ , I say. I clench her skin, hard. _You’d kill a little girl_? she says, her voice tightening, rising under my palm. _I’ve killed far worse_ , I say in her ear, low.

Her breath’s cold. _You’re making a great mistake, Clegane_ , she says. _There are worse battles, further north. Greater battles than you’ve ever seen. This world needs me_. 

_Like fuck it does_ , I say and draw my blade along her neck, feeling warm blood gutter out over my fingers, my wrist.

***

Sansa had waited for Melisandre’s body to turn into shadows, charcoal swipes, to twist into nothing but firesmoke. But she didn’t. Her chest twitched, her mouth falling open, and the fierce red light in her eyes cooled to something duller, more opaque.

Sandor dropped her to the ground, the red cloak tumbling around her, covering her face. A dark pool of red blood began to seep from under the last curve of material.

Everything had happened so very fast. The guard running at Ser Davos. Swords out, everywhere, from Melisandre’s guards, and then, from behind barrels and crates, and pillars of stone, their twelve sellswords, men in dirty gold and black, moving forward.

The Red Lady’s guards had been taken by surprise. They had fanned out clumsily, and the sellswords had torn into them with ruthless speed. Sansa had grabbed onto Shireen – Melisandre had let go of her in surprise when the sellswords had appeared, though had remained standing very still – and Gendry had got them behind a large stone. She had watched Sandor in front of them, listening with all his might and lashing out occasionally if anyone came near him. Most of them didn’t, too taken up with tackling the sellswords. 

She’d seen Mendrel there, and Averey, too, in the thick of the fighting, Mendrel on the back of someone, biting on his ear, and perhaps two or three other men, sailors she thought, who she hadn’t known would be there.

Four sellswords had fallen, and finally, all of the guards. Gendry had got Melisandre by the wrist, dragged her away from the fighting, and wrenched her to the ground, the point of his sword at her throat as Sandor had taught him.

Ser Davos was hurt. Badly. He had a cut in his side and a terrible wound in his leg, which was bleeding profusely. He was leaning heavily on Mendrel’s shoulder, wincing, but shaking his head furiously, batting Gendry away.

Shireen’s eyes were wide.

‘We’ve really got to get the fuck out of this shithole,’ said Sandor. ‘Where are you?’ He put his hand out, and when Shireen took it, hoisted her up into his arms, over his shoulder. ‘You think we’d let that whorebitch take you?’ he said quietly to her as Sansa helped him stride away, towards the open harbour, towards Ser Davos’ ship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always wanted this to happen - ever since TeresaTrav said, a long time ago, ‘someone needs to off that red witch’…


	39. Chapter 39

On the sea again, the boat lurching like an old fucking drunk, Myr behind us somewhere. First place I’ve been that I’ve never seen.

Mendrel’s out front, Averey alongside him. They’re the only two who can properly sail this thing. Davos isn’t good. He says he’s fine, but I can hear it in his voice, the knowledge that there’s something along the road for him, not that far away. He knows it, I know it. His leg’s properly fucked. His side and all, worse I think, though it’s smaller.

Sansa’s bound him up, stitched him as much as she could – I had to use my hands, feel the wound, to help. Warm blood and soft innards. He’s abed, with the little one trying to give him water, until he sends her away.

We’ve three sellswords on board. I’m not keen on that much, but Davos said, through his pain, that we bloody needed something. How much he’s paid them and how long for is another matter. If the coin runs out, how likely are they to turn on us?

Mendrel says he knows a place, before Pentos. A small harbour town – we’ll be noticed, but we’ll have to stop somewhere - mayhaps to find a maester, if Davos makes it that far - before we go any further. Might be Braavos, or further round even, over the top to Lorath. 

I agree to it. Seems I’m in charge now, somehow.

***

It had all been down to Ser Davos. He had told them that since they’d arrived in Myr, he’d been making connections at the harbour, rooting out sellswords he thought he might just about be able to trust, and making sure he had enough coin to keep them that way. He hadn’t known, he had said, they would be needed so soon. He and Sandor had told Sansa what they had planned, and even though it was risky, Sansa had agreed to it. No one wanted to see Shireen back in the hands of Melisandre, and after hearing what she had said about needing her, she was only more glad. Instead of running, they had to confront her. Both Ser Davos and Sandor wanted her dead.

And now – he was dreadfully hurt. She knew it, even if Shireen didn’t, quite. He was the colour of old milk, and sweating horribly. The damage to his side seemed worse than his leg, even though that wound was bigger. She brought him water, and wine, when Sandor instructed her to. He couldn’t seem to eat anything. 

They didn’t have a great deal of food, anyway. Averey had packed some upon his instruction, but he hadn’t known there’d be three guards on board. It was better if she thought of them as guards, not sellswords. They were paid guards, protecting them. 

Favian, Asher and Dain. Two of them were from Westeros and spoke the Common Tongue. Favian was Myrish, though spoke some of her language in a broken tongue. They had two cabins to share – Dain had his own, being already seasick. Sandor had muttered something about him being ‘some fucking guard’, but they hadn’t been pursued. The Red Lady had only had the one boat. It was as Ser Davos had said, long ago – Stannis didn’t have many ships anymore.

The other two – guards sat on deck, playing cards and ribbing Averey a bit, who didn’t seem to mind. They seemed good-natured enough, Sansa thought, wondering if she just wanted them to be. Still, for now, she mostly kept her distance, leaving Sandor to address them. They had looked disdainfully at him at first, seeing his blindness, but after hearing his stories of King’s Landing, battle-tales, respected him well enough.

The boat lurched. Sansa’s stomach had remained in one piece so far, mercifully. They had sailed long enough for the coastline to diminish significantly, and for other boats to be at a distance. Mendrel had said they would get out into the open sea before turning north. Which is what they seemed to be doing now.

‘Sansa.’ Gendry was at her shoulder. He had taken on the role of second mate, helping Averey and Mendrel in any way he could. His palms were rubbed raw from rope-burns. ‘Ser Davos. He’s asking for you. You and Shireen.’

Sansa took a deep breath, nodded, and went to fetch Shireen. Sandor followed. He had found a thin pole below decks, the height of his thigh, and was using it to tap the floor and the low parts of the walls in front of him.

The air in Ser Davos’ cabin seemed stagnant, like the trace of water in a drain. Shireen ran up to the bed and began to excitedly tell him about the large bird she’d just seen, and its wingtips, dipped in oil. Ser Davos had a fixed, grimacing smile on his face. 

Shireen trailed off. ‘You’re really hurt.’

It was as if Ser Davos was swallowing metal. ‘I’m afraid I am, my lady.’

There was a moment of heavy silence as she stared at him, her fingers slightly pulling at the cover underneath Ser Davos’ stretched-out leg. The smell seemed to be coming from there.

‘Please don’t die,’ she said in a very small voice.

Sansa put her arm on Shireen's shoulder as she sat down next to his legs, telling herself she mustn't cry.

‘Ah.’ It was a sound both conciliatory and gravelly with discomfort. Ser Davos put his hand over one of Shireen’s, seeming to have to hold his breath to make that tiny movement. ‘We all have to go sometime.’

‘But I haven’t finished teaching you to read. There’s loads of words yet.’

‘You taught me plenty.’ A tear trickled down Shireen’s cheek. Ser Davos watched it. ‘You can do anything you like,’ he said, his voice thick - with encouragement, and pain. ‘Anything. You’re the bravest girl, and the cleverest. Cleverer than all the rest of us put together.’

‘Not clever enough to save you.’

‘Ay, well that’s something else for you to learn, if you like, as you get older. Maybe you’ll be a healer. The first female grandmaester.’

‘It’ll be too late.’ Shireen’s voice was plaintive.

His voice was dwindling, yet there was still the old reassurance he’d always had there, too. The calm, resourceful thoughtfulness. ‘It’s alright. I’ve had a good long life. I’ve seen a lot of places, met a lot of people – all the things you’re going to do.’ Sansa stifled a sob. Ser Davos eyed her, and winced, as if someone was wringing out his insides. ‘Go on, the pair of yous. Off you go now. Sandor will stay with me for a bit longer.’

Sandor had remained standing, his back at the door. Sansa leant over Ser Davos and wrapped her arms around his neck. Shireen, lower down, put her head on his chest. 

‘Well, look at that. Lucky me,’ said Ser Davos, softly.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Sansa in a half-whisper in his ear. 

His beard rubbed against her cheek. ‘No need.’ He patted her weakly on the arm. ‘You did a good thing. I’m glad I didn’t end my days on that black bloody rock.’ A feeble squeeze. ‘You’ve just got to keep going now. You’ve got to look after everyone.’

‘I will.’ She kissed him on the cheek, biting down her tears, and gently helped Shireen up. Shireen put her hand on Ser Davos’ beard and gave him an angry, furious, tearful look, before running out of the door.

***

Davos is on his last. The breaths are slow, great gulfs between each one, and I wonder when the next one will come, or if the one I’ve just heard is the final one. Each breath has rain and wind in it, sea-storms.

I just sit next to him on a chair too damned small for me. Gods, it’s dark, this life. Even if I had my sight, I’d say the bloody same. Listening to a dying man makes you think about everything you’ve seen, everything you’ve got, however small. I’m grateful I’m still alive, despite of everything. 

_I never had daughters_ , he says, quiet.

The ship creaks. 

_Always wanted one_ , he says.

I can’t think of anything to say.

He goes to sit up a bit, groaning. _Leave off, Davos, lie still_ , I say, and he stops, tight sounds from behind closed lips. _Gods bloody damn it all_ , he says. That’s the truth of it. Gods - whoever the fuck they are.

 _You bloody well look after her, alright_? he says. _Ay_ , I say, knowing he means the little one, _I will_. He shifts again. _Properly_ , he says. _Find her protection. Both of them_.

The waves batter the boat, gently. His mouth is dry – I hear his lips smacking, and find the waterskin for him, uncork it, help him drink. _You and me were on different sides_ , he says. _The bay between us. All that fire_.

I see it all. Green seas of it, stretching as far as the horizon, as high as the sky, searing my eyes, my bones. Flaring in my brain for days afterwards, for weeks. Still there, a trace of it.

 _What do we do it all for_? he says. 

I’ve no answer for that, either.

An awkward swallow. _Fighting other people’s battles_ , he says. _Other people’s power. My sons_ – His voice breaks up, part grief, part pain. _I know_ , I say.

His hand is on my arm. First time we’ve ever come into contact, I reckon. _Bury me at sea_ , he says. _I’m not rotting on land_.

He settles back, his breathing slower than ever, each one as long as a winter, dragging through every bit of him. _Ay_ , I say. _You’ve my word_.

***

The sun was beginning to set. Clouds pulled in towards it, clouds like late bluebells. Slowly, the horizon deepened, a purpling, mushroomy shade, with rose-coloured streaks, like the trails of loosed arrows, soaring, crossing over each other. 

Ser Davos had been wrapped tightly in a white sheet, nothing of him visible. Sandor had dropped the anchor, and he and Mendrel had brought him over to the side of the boat. The coastline of Essos was a thin line on the horizon. 

Sansa and Shireen stood together, the wind whipping their hair across their faces. Gendry was just behind them, one hand folded on top of the other. The two sellswords who weren’t sick sat behind, watching, quiet. Mendrel straightened, and looked round at them, as if waiting for something. For something to be said. Sansa couldn’t think of anything that she could possibly say out loud. What was there to say? She shook her head.

Mendrel nodded and said a low, short word to Sandor, who heaved Ser Davos’ torso onto his shoulder. They stood there, with the long white body between them, like the trunk of a tree, and there was a moment of stillness, the only sound the hushing of the sea.

Sansa saw Sandor put his hand on Ser Davos’ chest as he heaved him over the side, and she said a silent prayer, to the Father, and to the Warrior, too. 

Shireen ran to the edge. Sansa followed. Ser Davos’ body floated away from them, carried on the gentle waves, tipping slightly. Slowly, it turned on its side, and began to sink.

‘Goodbye,’ whispered Shireen.

The body disappeared, engulfed by the black-ink sea. The sky, too, was turning, leaching the same colour. Blunt arrowheads were all that was left of the pinkish streaks. Arrowheads, or perhaps strange, foreign birds, trailing up. Trailing up, their songs fading.


	40. Chapter 40

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel I should let y'all know that this story is nearing some sort of end point... just in case you are expecting the second book's worth... 
> 
> I hope you like! This has been one of my favourite chapters to write (oh, and the next one). Huge mega-turbo thanks for all your comments as always (EVEN ALL THE ONES ABOUT THE VIAL). Honestly, they keep me awake at night. In a good way. Mostly a good way. Hahahaha.

It took another day and half to reach the harbour town that Mendrel had spoken of. Sansa quietly described the stocky white and grey houses that piled up the hillsides, the fishing ships, one or two small trade boats, and very little else, to Sandor as they stood on deck. 

It had been decided that they would rest here for a night or two, in order to make a couple of small repairs on the boat, as well as stock up on supplies for their onward journey. Ser Davos had left Sandor two bags of coin he’d made from his trading to Tyrosh, which was just enough for now. They would remain in the ship’s cabins rather than looking for anywhere to stay. It seemed safer, in case they needed to fly in haste.

The journey had been very quiet since Ser Davos’ burial. Sansa couldn’t stop seeing his wrapped body disappearing into the folds of the sea, though she thanked the gods that he had at least gone in a way that he wanted, unlike her own family. 

Shireen had hardly spoken since then. She had sat on her own on deck, twisting thin rope-twines into strange shapes, untwisting them again. Sandor or Gendry had sat with her once or twice and she’d just bowed her head so that her hair became a veil, or even turned her shoulder to them slightly. Sansa had curled her arms round her for the last two nights.

Docking the boat had seemed to make Shireen find her voice again. ‘Did Ser Davos plan everything?’ she asked in the kitchen, where Sansa was chopping sweet potatoes that Averey had bought from a stall.

‘Yes,’ said Sansa. ‘He’d been working very hard – I hadn’t realised, not until then. He and Sandor planned it.’ She put her hand on top of Shireen’s. ‘We thought it best if you didn’t know.’ Shireen nodded, her eyes a little dull. ‘Tell me truly. Did you want to go back to Dragonstone? Did we do the wrong thing?’

Shireen screwed her nose up, and unscrewed it again. She looked at Sansa simply. ‘I do miss them. Father, anyway. A bit. And Patches, mostly. But – I like it here. With you. With everyone.’

Sandor came in, banging his hip on the jutting corner of a table. He cursed, loudly.

Shireen looked at him, before scratching the table. ‘What do you think was in that bottle?’

‘Fucking poison,’ he said, rubbing his hip. ‘Strangler’s, or worse.’

‘It might not be,’ said Shireen, looking at her fingernails. 

‘What do you mean?’ said Sansa.

‘We can find out.’ Shireen twisted round, and pulled out the long, slim bottle from her skirts.

***

The little one brings it to me. Slim as a finger, cool glass. _When the fuck did you get that_? I say. _I don’t remember, not exactly_ , she says. _Everything was like a whirlpool or something. But I grabbed it off her before Gendry came and got me_.

I run my thumb over the bottom of it. Shake it a bit. A tiny slop against the side. Makes me feel sick. I uncork it, stand up.

 _Where are you going_? she says. _To tip this pigswill over the side_ , I say. A shriek from her. _No, don’t_! she yelps.

 _Why the hells not_? I snap back. _You think she was going to save me? That dark fucking bitch? She’d sooner have pulled my bloody eyes out of my skull, held them in my hands for you to see, the veins all dangling down right in front of you like bloody vines or something. I’d have been left with fucking caves instead of eyes_.

Sansa says my name, quietly. Can’t help it. She’s still in my blood, that evil woman.

 _Please don’t_ , the little one says again, the first word stretched out like it’s been on a rack. 

_Give me one good bloody reason_ , I say.

 _Because I’ve tried it_ , she says, and my jaw nearly comes off in shock.

***

Sansa was aghast. ‘Shireen –‘ her voice dropped to half a whisper.

‘The fuck -?’ said Sandor at the same time. He swiftly corked the bottle again and put it in his pocket. He dropped to his knees, putting his arms out and finding Shireen there. Grabbing her by the shoulders, he shook her.

She wobbled in front of him but stayed standing, biting her lip.

‘Shireen, what do you _mean_?’ said Sansa. ‘How did you try it?’

Shireen wriggled slightly away from Sandor and shrugged. ‘Yesterday. I was –‘ her eyes dropped guiltily to the floor. ‘I felt so sad. About –‘ she couldn’t say his name right now, but they both knew what she meant. ‘I didn’t care. I didn’t care if it went wrong.’

‘You fucking –‘ said Sandor.

‘What did you do?’ said Sansa at the same time, feeling sick. Any moment now, Shireen was going to come apart in front of them, melt into nothing but rags.

‘I put two drops in each of my eyes,’ said Shireen, simply.

‘For fuck’s –‘ said Sandor under his breath.

Sansa tugged Shireen towards her and knelt down. She put her thumb to the underside of one eye and pulled the skin down carefully. Shireen’s pupil shrank, before growing again, the clear green staring right back at her. She did the same with the other eye. Nothing. ‘How do you feel?’

Shireen raised one shoulder. ‘Fine. Sad still.’

‘But – your _eyes_. Did they hurt? Sting, or – can you see alright?’

Shireen sighed. ‘Stop worrying. Nothing happened.’ She looked pointedly at Sandor. ‘But then I’m not blind.’

Sandor sat down heavily, right there, on the floor. ‘No, you’re fucking – for the love of – fuck.’ He propped his elbows on his raised knees and hung his head down.

‘So you have to try it. Just to see.’ Sandor shook his head repeatedly to himself in a mixture of fury and exasperation. ‘You _do_.’ Shireen’s voice became clear, calculating, stubborn. ‘I might have been killed getting that bottle off her. I did it for you.’

The wind rattled the shutters.

‘Fuck,’ said Sandor.

***

For bloody – she’s a fucking one, that little – fucking bribery. Emotional bargaining. She’s got me. If she can do it, then I can’t - maybe it doesn’t work on little royal little annoying bloody girls. Maybe it only senses big fucking blind lugs, and makes leeches suck on your eyeballs. For the Gods’ –

I send her out of the room. Not having her staring at me, tapping her bloody fingers. Sansa stays. She stayed last time, she can stay this time. 

_If this kills me_ \- I say.

 _Please don’t say that_ , Sansa says, and there’s a little fountain of something in her voice. _You don’t have to try it. I don’t – it doesn’t matter_.

 _Yes I bloody do_ , I say. _Just_ \- and I grab her, hold her close, find her mouth. Feel like I haven’t kissed her in days. 

Fuck it. 

I bring the bottle out of my pocket, pop the cork open with my thumb. A little thwop. I put my nose to it. Acidic, like really old wine. And maybe something else. Some flower. Fucking gobshite bollocks. I hand it to Sansa.

 _I don’t want to_ , she says. _Just do it_ , I say, and tip my head back.

***

It was just as before. A long moment of silence, and waiting, and Sandor blinking the liquid away, it trickling a little down each cheek, pale lavender tears. His eyes didn’t sizzle, or dissolve, but they didn’t unfog either. They were the same milky shade they had been since Dragonstone.

He crossed his arms. Sansa didn’t dare say anything.

A little scratching at the door, like a terrier. ‘Stop bloody hovering, then,’ Sandor said towards the door.

Shireen came sneaking in, treading very lightly as if she didn’t want to anyone to hear her. She looked carefully over at Sandor. ‘Did it work?’ she said, the merest trace of bright hope in her voice.

A sigh from him. ‘No.’

Shireen walked up to him and waved her hand in front of his eyes. He grabbed her by the wrist. She made a noise like a mouse being trodden on.

‘I still know you’re bloody there, even if I can’t see you,’ said Sandor.

Shireen’s shoulders sank. ‘I was sure it would work,’ she said, in a small voice.

He dropped her wrist. ‘Never mind that. Just as well we didn’t trade you. You probably just poured ox’s piss in your bloody eyes.’

She dug her toe into the floorboard. ‘Maybe if we had, if I’d gone with her properly, she would have given you the real one. Maybe she knew all along.’

Sandor sniffed. ‘Don’t think so, little fish,’ he said. 

Sansa’s heart had anchored in her stomach. She could hear Sandor trying to keep his voice light enough for Shireen, but she heard the weight in it, the resignation. 

He rose, the chair and his bones creaking. ‘Getting some air,’ he said, and left the room, the fingers of one hand outstretched, tapping his stick in front of him with the other.

***

My mind’s in a strange, dark place. This is my world. Now, always. That’s me told. This hollowness, this place where seeing’s as foreign as all those hundreds of other tongues on Essos. Where it’s nary more than a memory, like my sister or my mother, something I took for granted, didn’t know I cared about until it had gone. Distant, and shrinking further. Colours fading like they do at summer’s end. 

Though I knew it already, what just happened with the Red – can’t even think her name, any name for her – has sealed it tight, the great boulder over the opening of the cave. I’m in this cave now, forever. My own cave.

My insides are spread flat. I don’t know. I’ve been getting used to it, of course I have, doing my bloody damndest, for her. To live for _her_. If it wasn’t for Sansa – fuck. She’s my –

I feel a bit like crying for the first time in – since I was a boy, I think. But even the bloody salt tears are only falling inside, lodging inside me like grit, like hard pine needles.

I need to face it. My future, whatever in the hells it is, however many years I’ve got like this. 

Her hands like dove’s wings. Her hum in my ear, like a fleck of breeze. The way her cheeks make the tiniest near-click when she smiles. 

My own way of looking.

***

There were stars out, mixed with indigo clouds like migrating geese. Sandor sat outside on deck, a dark shadow, very still. He’d been there all evening, refusing food. Everyone else had gone to bed.

‘I know you’re there,’ he said.

She walked very softly, bare feet on the wood, and stood in front of him. He put a hand out, found her side, felt for her hand. His thumb curled around her forefingers. 

There seemed to be nothing to say. The deep violet darkness surrounded them both, wrapping around them like a cloak, binding them together. He pulled her, the gentlest of tugs, until she was sitting in his lap, his arm wrapped around her waist.

Sansa put her cheek to his unburnt one, her nose in the salt of his neck. Her hand found his other cheek, tracing his burns. _I’m sorry_ , she thought. _I’m sorry for everything_. ‘I love you,’ she said, properly, for the first time.

His mouth was at her ear. He took a deep breath in, and held it. She wondered if the air would ever come out again. A dog barked, far off.

There was faint, warm air on her neck. ‘Ay.’ His lips closed, and opened again. Another breath. The sea on the side of the boat. ‘I love you, too,’ he said, very quietly indeed.

***

Everything’s different. Calmer, somehow. My heartbeat’s slowed. There are great big spaces between each one.

She’s atop me, the second time we’ve done it like this. I’ve my hands on her thighs, lying quite still, letting her move how she wants. Everything’s dead quiet, even to me. Tiny sounds, just her breath, which is shallow and all in her shoulders, and the sound we make together. This is what I have now. Shapes felt with my fingers. Shapes heard with my ears.

I blink, and feel a tiny spike of something in my eye, like a bit of twig. Gods, I can’t cry, _now_. She’ll think I’m a damned bloody _maid_. Hold up, though. It’s not quite like crying. It’s – cold, like a wee shard of ice, a feeling I haven’t had for a good long few years. I blink again.

Something catches in my throat. There are snowflakes in my eyes. Snowflakes, or – what in the hells – a dusting of something. Like someone’s thrown a load of dark grit on glass right in front of me. Dark grit on gla –

On _glass_. It’s like there’s shades to the darkness, just a little. I hardly dare think it. Like bits of the air have been rinsed, just once. I hold my breath, tell myself to just bloody do it. Another blink.

A pale shape, in front me, long and thin. Slow, and shifting. A ghost of her.

I can – fuck. I think I’m seeing again.


	41. Chapter 41

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For corinne157 for her lovely comments.

She liked it like this. She could be in charge, lower herself onto him carefully, bring herself forward a little so that she kept him shallow, or shift back and have him deeper inside her. 

Tonight had been a new, different sort of intimacy, somehow. An unspoken understanding of their bond – of some sort of future together. It was an uncertain, dangerous one, but one in which they’d be there for each other, protecting one another equally. They hadn’t said a word since they’d shut the door of their chamber, simply removed each other’s clothes, taking it in turns. She had used her fingers, more than ever, to explore him, as he always did now to her.

Sansa realised that Sandor wasn’t moving at all, and had gone completely quiet, with not a single tiny sound from his throat as he sometimes made. Nor curses, which were even more common. She opened her eyes and her heart slammed into her throat. 

His – his _eyes_.

In the half-gloom from the scrap of candle left, she could see him. Looking back at her.

She froze. There was a slight shimmer to his eyes. Less fog. There was definitely less fog. 

Sandor’s fingers remained on her thighs. ‘Keep going,’ he said, his voice low.

A near-pain in her stomach. She didn’t dare even hope – oh gods. She suddenly folded her arms, her wrists over her breasts.

She could see the side of his mouth curl up. ‘You’re embarrassed _now_?’ he said.

He was looking at her. She felt pinned to him, two iron bolts from him straight through her skull, her bones. His grey eyes. They were _grey_ again.

A squeeze on her legs. ‘Keep going,’ he said again. It was as if the air was metal, melted down.

And she did.

***

There’s a tiny trace of sweat at the base of her neck. Like an ice pool with a dawn sun on it. 

I know because I’m looking at it. 

I spent myself in her, and she on me. Around me. I watched her, a girl shaped like a shift on a line, a shift blowing in a breeze, a shift that found firmer edges, like something drawn with chalk. Like something drawn with chalk, and becoming firmer, ink appearing behind her. She made something like a sob and leant down to me, her elbows by my ears, saying _can – can you see me_? And I said _ay. I think so. A little_.

And now I’m holding the candle above her, dripping wax on the blanket. I have to. My eyes are still cold, full of snowflakes. I don’t know if – this could be all a cruel trick, that woman’s last blood-spit in my face, to give me a snatch of it only to take it away again. It’s not quite – things are furred, or, I don’t know, it’s dark anyway, I can’t see quite right, for sure, but I’m seeing something. Of _her_.

I turn Sansa over, onto her side, kneeling next to her. I can hardly fucking breathe. She’s there. She’s real. It’s as if she’d never been quite whole, all this time, a dream of her, her voice coming at me from far off, even if right in my ear. Her touch lighter than it really was. She’s fucking _real_. 

Her eyes are wide. Her _eyes_. Gods. It’s night, it’s too dark. I get up, find the candle, say, don’t move.

***

He was seeing. He was actually seeing. The Red Lady had somehow – her word had been true. Sansa could hardly move, or speak, or think. 

Sandor had bid her stay on top of him, and she had kept moving, kept him inside her, until that sweet, slow bruising sensation had flooded through her, and he had clenched himself tight, his grip on her thighs painful, and not made a sound.

And then he had carefully helped her lift herself off him, and had lain so close to her, his nose touching hers, peering at her. Frowning, as if she wasn’t quite right, or was not what he had expected. And then he had moved, abruptly, and brought the candle over, wax glooping onto his fingers, and looked.

All this time she had been naked in front of him, had him inside her, or exploring every single inch of her with his fingers, and yet to be looked at by him made her blush unimaginably. She had wanted to scrunch up into a ball and hide under the blanket. But she breathed deeply and let him peer at her, his nose close, hot breath on her skin.

Where had he gone now, though? Did he want to find a looking glass, examine himself? Look at the ship? The harbour, even in the dark? She heard his feet outside. He’d left their chamber without any clothes on. A flickering as Sandor came in, with two more candles in one hand, making his eyes brighter. 

He set their holders down on the little table next to the bed, and dragged it over, and sat next to her again, moving the covers completely away from her. ‘Right,’ he said. 

***

Her hair. There’s amber coming through, a finger-width of it, more even. I’d almost bloody forgotten about her hair and its colour. Its colours. Hers and mine. Halfway down her neck of course – that I knew well enough.

Freckles. As if someone’s pepper-sprinkled her nose. Her shoulders too, like I’d wondered. I have to come very close to see them, my mouth almost at her skin. I put my fingers on them, each one I can find. 

Her eyes. Never in my life have I – the way the sky goes sometimes, the last gasp of day before night comes in properly, a long spread of blue-green-grey. I didn’t know they were a bit grey.

She’s looking – I don’t know, worried, maybe. She puts her hand up, a thumb on the underside of my eye. _How do they feel_? she says, and the sound of her words with the shape of her mouth is like a revelation, like understanding language for the first time. 

_Cold_ , I say. _I’m not seeing true, not quite_. She looks frightened. _Don’t worry, little bird_ , I say. _If this is my last go, I’m going to make use of it_. I’m going to remember you forever, I think.

Gods, I’d almost forgotten. I turn her over, bring her other side to me, to find it. She moves, easy as a trained hound, or horse, or goshawk. Or a she-wolf.

***

He was examining her like she imagined a maester would if she had a mysterious plague. His hands were lighter than they had been all this time, his face so close. He ran two fingers up her ribs, and stopped. He moved his nose right down to it, thumbed the small mole.

‘There,’ he said. 

***

I don’t sleep. How can I shut my eyes ever again? I don’t want to even fucking blink. I watch sleep claim her slowly, like it’s painting over her, making her heavy, making those bloody lashes flutter and finally meet each other. Her ribs show through skin that’s as translucent as wet paper, or paper with light shining through it. 

Dawn comes slowly. The day’s own eyes opening for the first time. The air turns from grey to pale brown to dark yellow and then something milkier, soft. A circle of light - _light_ – 

I’m torn. I want to stay here, next to her, from this day to my last, and mayhaps I will, but I need to see this too. The day. The world.

***

Sansa awoke in an empty bed. She felt a sudden pang of pain and fear – perhaps his sight had gone again. She rose, quickly dressed, and dashed up the stairs.

Sandor was standing barefoot, in his breeches and shirt, close to the rail of the ship, looking out to sea. She watched him for a moment as he stood there, tall and straight, not moving, before standing by his shoulder. 

He turned suddenly, taking a violent breath in, and stared at her. Sansa felt as if she could hardly move. As if her whole body had turned to ice, just by the power of his look. In the dawn light, his eyes had a sort of brightness to them, like the sun behind rainclouds, and the grey was rimmed with a deeper shade. They somehow defined the rest of his face more – brought out the darkness of his beard, his eyebrows, the lines from his nose to the side of his mouth. She’d always been scared of them, before. And now – she could feel her knees trembling.

‘Stop staring at me,’ she said in a whisper.

‘Not a fucking chance.’

Sansa bit her lip in a grin and looked away, out to the early morning sea. The clouds were gathered at each end of the horizon, dense and dark, and between them the sea scudded and sparkled. ‘Can you truly see?’

He followed her gaze, drawing his eyebrows down, as if concentrating hard. ‘Can’t see the waves properly. The lines of them. Can’t quite see how they’re moving.’ He squinted further. ‘Bloody half-arsed potion.’

‘Maybe we didn’t use enough. Maybe we just need to do it again.’

‘Can’t.’ He turned to her, sheepishly. ‘I chucked the rest over the side last night. Before -’

Her shoulders drooped.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Sandor said. ‘It doesn’t,’ he said again, seeing Sansa about to protest, and nodded out to the horizon. ‘I can see the sea.’ He tipped his chin up. ‘Sky.’ Half-turned and looked over his shoulder. ‘Houses. Boats. Harbour.’ He turned back to Sansa and took her hand up, his thumb on her palm, and held it very close to his face. He traced all around the edge of each finger and slowly lowered it, leaning down to her, his voice sinking. ‘One very pretty bloody girl.’

Halfway through their tender, deep kiss, Sansa opened her eyes to find him staring right back at her.

***

A little later and the little one comes up on deck, slowly, her hand trailing along the railing. She’s not bounced, or jumped, or tumbled, these last few days, since Davos. As small as her voice and grey-brown mouse-hair all over the damned place. 

Everything’s still blurred. I know what everything is alright, it’s just – their edges aren’t edges. They’re all soft as down. I want to take a washcloth to everything, swipe it clean and crisp. 

The little one says good morning, dead quiet. I’m facing away from her a bit – she can’t see my face. I sniff back. _Could do with a peach_ , I say. There’s a silence, then a sigh, and she goes back downstairs. When I hear her at the top of the steps again, I turn a bit, say, _chuck us it here, then_ , and without thinking, I reckon, she does, tossing it in the air.

In the tiny moment it takes to reach me, it gets sharper as it comes nearer, and I put my arm up and snatch it, quick as anything. Shireen carries on with her heavy stomp-walk, before she stops. Her breath hitches. She runs up to me, stands right there, staring.

I stare back. _What_? I say. _Not seen a man catch a peach before_? I take a great Stranger-sized chomp out of it, pulp going everywhere. She peers right into my face, her jaw hanging open. I blink once, heavily, open my eyes wide at her. Slowly, one side of her top lip curls, like someone’s been telling her a long story and is just coming to the punchline. And she grins.

Funny how voices take on their own shapes, mould people into something quite different. Shireen I’d seen of course, though I was mostly fucking delirious with thirst, and peering at her by candlelight. I’d near forgotten about those bloody fish-scales on one side of her face – they cover her neck and all, and there’s some on her hand, and I wonder if she’s got them all over her, a proper bloody mermaid girl. Maybe that’s what I’ll call her. Her eyes are as sharp as tacks.

Mendrel’s the size and shape of a prize-winning bloody pumpkin, brown and orange and creased, something fierce in his eyes, which I see when he’s close, slapping me on the back like he’s a baker and I’m bread he’s flouring. His lad’s a scrawny thing, all elbows and ribs, but he’s got this mop of filthy blonde hair I hadn’t imagined. The sellswords are lean, as lined as crumpled-up paper, thin. Older than I’d maybe thought. Their voices are different now I’m looking at them, I swear. Bit more careful. Don’t think they’ll be trouble. Though thinking of them having as much as glanced over towards Sansa without me seeing afore now makes me dig my knuckles into my palm.

The boy – Gendry, I mean – isn’t what I expect. He’s got bloody wayward hair that looks like it’s trying to pull him in about five different directions at once. A thin nose, shit attempt at a beard, and one shoulder hanging a little lower than the other. He doesn’t look much like Stannis, or Robert, if that’s who his father was. His eyes rival Sansa’s for brightness, mind - like two bloody blue ice-stones, though I fancy they cloud a bit when he sees me, and realises what’s happened, like he’s not sure whether I’ll fucking hit him or not.

Then I can see him make himself stand tall in front of me, which is about up to my chin, and he puts his hand out. _I’m glad_ , he says. _I’m glad you can see again_.

 _I am and all_ , I say, and shake it, hold him there. _Not going to fucking let you beat me in training any more_.

And he smiles. 

***

Sandor didn’t leave her side. He was never more than a hand away from her, and all the time, he was looking - a thoughtful, appraising look, at a different part of her. She kept blushing at him, glaring, which just made a slow half-grin appear on his face, and he’d simply stare more. Occasionally he would rub a palm over his face, as if to check his sight – even though it didn’t seem to be quite right – was still there, and would appear relieved.

Shireen kept throwing him things - ‘I’m not your fucking dog,’ he’d said – or sneaking up behind him and pinching him, and running away just out of his grasp. 

She was in the process of doing it again as Sandor sat on the bench on deck, gnawing on a chunk of hard, white cheese. This time, he caught her, and stood up, turning her upside down with just one arm around her calves, carrying on eating. Shireen’s hair feathered down to the floor and she went a mixture of very pale and very red. ‘Serves you right,’ he said, dumping her on the deck. ‘Just because I can see you doesn’t mean you have to be more annoying.’ 

She ran away towards Gendry, who was holding a rope with Averey on the other end, painting lacquer-oil over some boards on the outside of the hull.

‘You know what I could bloody do with,’ Sandor said. 

Sansa shook her head.

He opened his eyes wide and leaned into her. ‘ _Wine_.’

There was a shout from Favian, and they both looked up. He was standing at the harbourside of the deck, pointing, his hand on his sword. Sandor stood up very quickly, and swore under his breath. Sansa rose, alarmed.

Coming along the harbour towards Asher, who had gotten up from the barrel he was sitting on and barred the way to the ramp, was a small train of guards clad in gold and red. And in front of them – her mouth fell open.

Of all the people in the world to appear now, she hadn’t expected this one.

***

Of all the – 

The bloody fucking shitting Imp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise that this will be the last cliffhanger. I PROMISE.


	42. Chapter 42

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For everyone who has ever commented on this story: I promise you that this would have fizzled out after three chapters if it wasn’t for you all dropping in with your encouragements and oft-hilarities. BIG LOVE. Special mensh to mrm1.

There was a long, distilled moment. Each group seemed to mirror the actions of the other. Sansa stood on deck, rooted to the spot, her mouth hanging open. Lord Tyrion Lannister, dressed in dark red leather and a dull-gold cloak, stood at the bottom of the ramp, his jaw also ajar, staring up at her, but his eyes also swivelling up to Sandor, who had moved to the top of the ramp, and along to Shireen and Gendry, who were gazing at him from the railing. Lord Tyrion’s stare was careful, and puzzled. Dain, Favian and Asher kept their hands on the hilts of their swords, their elbows crooked and Lord Tyrion’s guards did exactly the same.

‘The fuck do you want?’ Sandor said, all the softness gone from his voice.

She could see Lord Tyrion visibly swallow, and take two steps towards Asher, who straightened and tensed his sword arm. Tyrion ignored him. ‘My lady.’ His light, tripping tone was just as she’d remembered it. As if they were standing opposite each other at a feast dance and not with guards and swords everywhere. ‘It’s – something of a surprise to find you here. And a relief, I might add.’ He narrowed his eyes at Sandor before looking back at her. ‘Has he hurt you, my lady?’

‘You little fucking –‘ Sandor stepped forward, and everyone’s swords rose by an inch or two. 

Sansa sidestepped quickly and put her hand out towards Sandor’s stomach. ‘ _Hurt_ me? Why would you say that? No.’

Lord Tyrion remained very still, a tiny vein in his temple throbbing, looking around at everyone. His eyes settled on Shireen. ‘I believe that this is Shireen Baratheon,’ he said, rather quietly.

A small lump rose in Sansa’s throat. ‘Does everyone know she is missing?’

‘Missing? No. I had heard nothing of it, at least. I just read books, family trees, that sort of thing.’ He smiled up at Shireen, the merest of looks at her crusted skin. ‘You are written about, my lady.’

Shireen frowned down at him and crossed her arms. ‘I know just who _you_ are.’

‘I’m sure you do,’ he said benignly, his voice drifting. ‘People always seem to.’ He seemed to snap back into something sharper, more focused. ‘Well. This is all most curious, I must say.’ He addressed Sansa again, looking past Asher’s waist. ‘My lady, I – perhaps we might speak in private?’

‘Ask that again and I’ll be removing _your_ fucking privates,’ said Sandor, his voice like gravel.

Tyrion looked thoughtful. ‘Well, I have to say I rather like those.’

The atmosphere was extremely strange. Why wasn’t he telling his guards to attack them? ‘What are you doing here, Lord Tyrion?’ Sansa asked carefully. If she wasn’t aggressive, and behaved as a highborn lady should, perhaps it would be safer. 

‘Looking for you. Rescuing you,’ he said lightly, with a slightly doubtful frown.

A snort from Sandor.

***

She’s bloody taken him on board this ship. The guards were left below, harbourside, but still. They’re in the captain’s cabin. I don’t fucking like it. My mind’s racing. He’s going to - _what_? I don’t know, use his fucking slick tongue on her somehow – not _on_ her, not – oh Gods, man, stop it. 

I didn’t need perfect bloody eyes to recognise him. I’d recognise him three bloody leagues away. _Rescuing_ her. Fucking – gods, it all seems so long ago, King’s Landing, and our agreement. I don’t know what the hells he’s after – he’s not Cersei, I can see that well enough, he wanted Sansa gone, away – _safe_ , even, maybe - but I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. And I could throw him a bloody long way. 

I’m outside the door. Their voices are too bloody quiet. 

***

Lord Tyrion sat on the bench, looking around him with the same maddeningly mild curiosity, before settling his gaze back on her with a smile he seemed to hope was reassuring. ‘Lady Sansa, you can tell me truly. You have my every confidence. I have more guards a day or so away. You need not be afraid. Has the Hound mistreated you?’

Sansa crossed her arms. ‘His name is Sandor Clegane. And _no_.’

Lord Tyrion put a hand out onto the table, quite near her elbow. She tried to imagine being married to him, and them sitting together like this before dinner, before _bedtime_. She tried not to shudder. 

‘Has he – forgive the intrusion, but I must ask. Has he –‘ His eyes dropped demurely to the table. ‘Defiled you?’

 _Defiled_ her? She hoped to the gods her cheeks weren’t flushing. ‘ _No_. Why on earth would you say that? Look, I’m sorry I ran away, I’m sorry that I didn’t want to marry you. It wasn’t just that it was _you_ – it was that you were a Lannister, and I’d be trapped there forever, and - if you’re here on Cersei’s command, then just take me, but don’t hurt anyone else, just let them all go. It was all my fault.’

There was a thoughtful pause. ‘The words ‘Cersei’ and ‘command’ don’t go very well together when it comes to me, I’m afraid,’ Lord Tyrion said with a rueful smile, before looking puzzled again. ‘How can it have been your fault? What has the Hou- Clegane made you think?’

Sansa felt a rising frustration. She knew no one had thought much of Sandor back at King’s Landing, and especially not Lord Tyrion after what she had heard had happened at Blackwater, but why was he assuming the worst like this? ‘Why do you think he has made me do anything?’

Lord Tyrion looked faintly exasperated. He turned over his palm, and clasped his other hand in it, eyeing her plainly, speaking as if she was a very small, very simple child. ‘My lady. He kidnapped you.’

And there, in the cabin, with Sandor right outside the door, Lord Tyrion told Sansa what had happened, before they had left, at King’s Landing.

***

I’m standing there, trying to hear what’s happening, wondering when she’ll let me kill him, when the door opens suddenly. I turn and she goes straight past me, storming up the stairs. I quickly check the cabin to see if she’s eaten him. He’s sitting there, putting his palms up as if to say ‘not my fault’, no sign of bloodshed, more’s the pity. I go up, look for her, and she’s only bloody going down the ramp, onto the harbour, pushing past Asher, past the Imp’s guards, who turn stiffly, looking like they’re wondering if they’re supposed to grab her. She’s still going, becoming blurry. What the fuck? I chase after her. 

She’s off, heading for the first proper street up the hill. I call after her, and she veers suddenly off onto some side alley. What in the hells has got into her? I call her name, jog, turn the corner, and the thin, dark purple blur becomes sharper again, and she’s coming back, coming right up to me, almost as if she’s about to walk _through_ me, and then she raises her fists and pummells me with them.

 _The fuck, Sansa_? I say, taking a step back. She keeps coming, barrelling both fists into my chest. Almost hurts. I have to take her by both wrists and hold her away from me. Her face is – like I’ve never seen it, not even at King’s Landing. Pale as anything, but dark red cheeks, and her eyes are raging and soaked. I have to squeeze her a bit hard and she struggles and kicks me in the shin.

 _Bloody hells, woman_ , I say, and wrestle her down onto a low wall. _Just stop, will you? Stop fucking hitting me. What – what is it_?

 _You lied to me_ , she says, and her voice is thin and stretched like a young bit of leather. _About what_? I say. _I hate lying, you bloody know that_.

 _You – you said we were going to Pentos_ , she says, furious, her arms beginning to go a bit more limp. _Well, we were, weren’t we_ , I say, _before I put us on the wrong stupid fucking ship_.

 _You said it was on you_ , she says. _The ship. You never said that Lord Tyrion paid you. Paid you to_ – her hands curl back into fists and I grab her wrists again just in time – _take me to my mother. In return for Ser Jaime Lannister_.

The way she says _mother_. Like it’s a newly-made arrow, fletched and strung and loosened, all in one breath.

I sit back on my haunches a bit, let go of her. Let her whack me a couple of times on the shoulder. _Ay_ , I say. Whack. _And I’d do it again_. Whack.

 _You stole me_ , she says. _I could have seen my family. My family_ , she says, and the last word is so full of anger and anguish it gives me a pain in my side worse than any sword. She whacks me again.

 _Sansa_ , I say, as her fist gets my ear. _Ow. Listen to me. He did give me the money. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. And I decided I wouldn’t take you that way. Not just for myself, I promise you. There’s no way in the seven hells that your brother would have let Jaime Lannister go for you_ – whack – _I’m sorry, but it’s the bloody truth. I didn’t think it would be safe enough for you. And – more than that. If I had taken you there, to the Riverlands or wherever in the hells they were, if I’d even got you there, you know what would have happened. You’d have been along with the rest of them. To the Twins. You’d have been –_ I swallow, as even thinking it nearly slays me – _you’d have been killed, just like your mother, and your brother, and your sister. You’d have – you wouldn’t be here, and – none of this_ – 

Can’t seem to bloody finish. I take a deep breath. _If I’d taken you there_ , I say, _you wouldn’t be mine. In here_. And I grab her fist before she clunks me around the fucking head, and put it at my breastplate, cover my hand with it.

Sansa goes rigid as a tombstone. And bursts into tears.

***

He was right. Of course he was. He hadn’t known what horror would befall her family, but he had kept her from it nonetheless. He had kept her alive, the only true Stark known to be left in existence. It was hard to forgive him straightaway, for him to have taken away that chance to see her family one last time, but it simply would have been her last time too. And she did want to live. Of course she did. She had Gendry, and Shireen, and she had him.

Lord Tyrion surprised her, too. On the ship that evening, he was nothing but gracious and courteous when she explained a little of what had happened, even if his eyebrows had found a new position on his forehead. She had not told him about her and Sandor, but she was sure he had surmised that rather quickly. She hardly cared. 

In return, he had told her of Cersei and Joffrey’s fury at finding out that Sansa had gone, and of Joffrey’s screams when he heard that Sandor had gone, too. ‘Like a newborn,’ he had said, with the merest of winks. He had said that he felt wholly responsible once he had realised that she wasn’t on Westeros, and had resolved to find her, and bring her back to some sort of safety. He had taken a ship to Pentos and searched there for weeks, until he had heard a rumour about a large burnt man on Myr from a spy of Lord Varys’. They were just stopping in this harbour town on their way there. He hadn’t said how he had known they were going to Pentos.

Lord Tyrion wasn’t at all what she had thought – he wasn’t like any of the other Lannisters. In fact, he seemed to loathe his sister with a vengeance. He didn’t exactly seem to relish returning to Kings’ Landing.

‘I rather like Essos,’ he said to her, sipping mint tea out of a small china cup in the captain’s cabin, where Sandor had reluctantly let him visit again. ‘The sun seems a little brighter, the air lighter, a little less – _sisterly_.’ A tiny smile danced on his lips. ‘And what will you do now?’ he asked her gently. 

She wasn’t sure she should tell him anything. Perhaps he would still take the information back to King’s Landing, or send for more ships. 

‘I’m not sure yet,’ she said. ‘It’s hard to know where to go when your whole family has been taken from you.’

His face grew serious, earnest. ‘I am sorry, my lady. You must know that I played no part in what happened at the Twins. Nothing at all. It chilled me more than you can imagine. To hear of your brother, and your mother.’

‘And my sister,’ said Sansa, seeing Arya’s arrows flashing through the forest at Winterfell.

‘My lady?’

Sansa looked at him. ‘My sister. Arya. She was killed at the Twins, too.’

Lord Tyrion carefully put his cup down.

***

I’m on deck and Shireen’s making me play some bloody stupid game with white and black pebbles, none of which makes any bloody sense to me, when Sansa comes stalking over. A streak of purple and black and cream coming into focus. I wonder if she’s come to hit me again. She doesn’t though. She calls Gendry over.

Shireen squints up at her. _I’m totally beating him_ , she says.

Sansa gives her the smallest of smiles, like she hasn’t really heard, and fixes her eyes on me, standing right by my shoulder. Her eyes, two horn-blasts of blue light. _I know what to do_ , she says.

Gendry’s come ambling over, scratching the back of his head, gnawing on an apple. _I’m totally beating him_ , Shireen says to him and all. He winks at her.

Sansa turns to Gendry. _Arya’s alive_ , she says, and my mind works hard for a moment. Arya – the wee chit, the scrap-of-Sansa, half her height and half the colour? Her sister. How the hells did she manage that? Gendry opens his mouth and a bit of apple falls out. There’s a scrub of red in his cheek suddenly.

She looks at me, tall and straight and fierce as a quiver of arrows made from a young willow tree. _We’re going to find her_ , she says.

***

The sun was like a great scattering of snow on the waves, thin at the prow of the ship and fanning out to the horizon, where bright white light spread in a long line, a distant wall. The sky was one broad swipe of blue, with not a single cloud, and the wind was up and in the right direction. Averey stood at the steer of the ship, with Mendrel and Gendry re-tying the sail-ropes, and the boat felt like it was flying.

Sansa stood at the prow, listening to the wind buffet the sail like war-drums being beaten all at once. Shireen stood next to her, shouting about a dolphin, which was definitely just a wave. A little further along stood Sandor, leaning his elbows on the rail, his hands clasped, staring out in that slightly frowning way he did now, trying to make everything come properly into focus, though it never did. He glanced over at her, as if having sensed that she was watching him, and smiled.

She looked back at the bright sun and sea. Arya was alive. Lord Tyrion had said that there had been no word of her ever being with her family at the Red Wedding, and that Tywin would definitely have crowed about it if she had been. Moreover, there had been rumours that a girl matching Arya’s description – Gendry had nodded emphatically when he had heard – had boarded a boat at Saltpans, heading for Braavos.

If Arya was in Braavos – even if there was the slightest chance – then that was where she was going. She would go there, and she would find her, and together, the two Starks, joined by wolfblood, something fiercer and darker than she ever knew she had – along with Shireen, and Gendry, and Sandor at her side to guide her – would work, slowly and carefully. Even if it took years, the other side of winter, further.

Together, they would take back Winterfell.

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BOOM. Done. Dusted. Thankyouloveyoubye!
> 
> PS I'm doing a redux-combo version of my first two stories for anyone who hasn't read them and wants to read somefink else. First chapter up ('Little Bird and The Colour of Fire')!


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